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JOHN COTTON. 



CONGREGATIONALISTS 



IN 



AMERICA 



A POPULAR HISTORY OF THEIR ORIGIN, BELIEF, 
POLITY, GROWTH AND WORK 



BY / 

/ 

REV. ALBERT E. DUNNING, D. D. 

SPECIAL CHAPTERS BY 

Rev. Joseph E. Roy, D. D., on Congregational Work and Progress in the 
West and Northwest ; Rev. Francis E. Clark, D. D., on Congre- 

GATIONALISTS AND THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE ; ReV. HoWARD A. 

Bridgman, ON Congregational Literature ; 

AND Rev. Alojstzo H. Quint, D. D., 

on Ecclesiastical Councils 

INTRODUCTIONS BY 

REV. RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D., LL. D. 

AND 

MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER O. HOWARD, LL. D. 



NEW YORK 

J. A. HILL & CO., Publishers 

44 East 14TH Street 




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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

J. A. HILL & COMPANY. 



A// rights reserved. 



THE MKRSHON COMPANY PKESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



/ 

PREFACE. 



This book is an attempt to tell the story of the rise of 
modern Congregationalism and its growth in America. It 
is prepared for busy pastors, Sunday-school teachers, Bible 
classes, Christian Endeavor societies and all others who wish 
to know what the Congregational denomination stands for, 
what it has done in this country, what it is fitted to do, and 
how it is related to the kingdom of God. 

The chief difficulty in writing this book has been to con- 
dense into required limits the great amount of materialVhich 
belongs in such a history, and at the same time to preserve a 
popular narrative form. Many important events and move- 
ments have been described only in the briefest outlines, which 
would have accumulated interest in proportion to the space 
given to them. Many things which must seem to many 
readers w^orthy of a place in this volume have of necessity 
been omitted. I have endeavored to make a continuous story 
of the Congregationalism of three hundred years, and my rule 
of selection has been to include the things which seem most 
essential to the continuity of the history. I have not allowed 
myself to take the space or to burden the pages with refer- 
ences in detail to authorities, though the temptation to do so 
was great. But I have not aimed to discuss controverted 
questions with students. The majority of readers have not at 
hand the authorities which might have been cited, nor do they 
usually take the pains to search for them ; and this book is 
intended for popular use. 

iii 



IV PREFACE. 

I have, however, taken care to verify these statements, and 
in doubtful matters to compare authorities and to consult 
where possible the best informed living witnesses. Nearly the 
entire volume has been read to and reviewed by Rev. Dr. A. 
H. Quint, who has, I believe, as thoroughly studied the history 
and Avorking of Congregationalism as anyone now living. I 
should not have undertaken this work had he not felt com- 
pelled, after some months of consideration, to decline to do it, 
nor should I then have ventured on it but for the assurance of 
his co-operation. I am under great obligation to him for his 
valuable suggestions, and for his guidance to the best sources 
of information. I am glad also to express my obligations to 
many others whom I cannot name for lack of space, especially 
to presidents of colleges and secretaries of our benevolent 
societies. I cannot hope to have avoided all mistakes ; but I 
shall be grateful to any who may call my attention to such 
errors as remain, that they may be corrected should a future 
edition be called for. 

The question of illustrations, especially of portraits, has 
been a perplexing one. It is unfortunate that no pictures are 
to be found of some of the greatest heroes of the early history 
of Congregationalism. Who would not rejoice to look on the 
face of John Robinson, of Thomas Hooker, or of John Eliot ? 
But they have left behind them no trace of lineaments or 
figure. A long list of worthies would seem to be entitled to 
place in the portrait gallery of this volume. But in the limi- 
tations which were found necessary, I have chosen those who 
have been conspicuous as pioneers in the advancing march of 
Congregationalism ; and I have not felt at liberty to insert the 
portraits of any who are still living. 

The special chapters have been written by men who will be 
recognized as authorities on the topics which have been 
assigned to them. Dr. Roy has been an important part of the 
history of the Northwest and of the South for more than thirty 



PREFACE. V 

years as a superintendent of missions. I know no man living 
who has been present at a larger number of National and State 
meetings and other notable gatherings of Congregationalists 
than he. Under his nom de plume of " Pilgrim," which he has 
signed to more than seven hundred letters published in 
various papers, he is known throughout the denomination. 
Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark is, as he always has been, a Congregationa- 
list, though the great movement which originated with him 
has spread through all Protestant denominations and through 
the world. Rev. H. A. Bridgman, the managing editor of the 
Congregationalist, has made special investigations of the 
beginning and growth of Congregational periodical literature. 
Dr. A. H. Quint, the moderator of the last National Council, 
has been a prominent factor in every one of these assemblies, 
and is unsurpassed in his familiarity with Congregational 
usages and with every aspect of ecclesiastical councils. Some 
repetition has been unavoidable, because the same period has 
been considered by different writers ; but not more, it is 
hoped, than the symmetry of each narrative required. 

I have made no mention of doctrinal discussions which 
center around the higher criticism of the Bible, and which are 
rife in all denominations. Nor have I alluded to very recent 
controversies connected with the American Board and 
Andover Theological Seminary. It is quite uncertain as yet 
whether these matters will demand much space in the history 
of Congregationalism in the nineteenth century. At present 
no denomination is more harmonious than ours. May the 
Spirit of holiness, truth, peace and love always abide in it ! 

My reverence for the wisdom, faith, consecration and cour- 
age of the men and women who have labored in this branch of 
Christ's body for the advancement of His kingdom has con- 
stantly increased as I have further studied their characters and 
aims. In the noble company of many names, of those who 
have " through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous- 



VI 



PREFACE. 



ness, obtained promises," Congregationalists hold an honorable 
place. All those who share their name ought to know some- 
thing of their principles and deeds. Every Congregationalist 
surely should be informed concerning the important facts of 
the history of his denomination. If I have succeeded in mak- 
ing these facts more accessible and interesting, my labors will 
have been amply rewarded ; for by the truths which He 
taught, the redemption which He accomplished, and the 
companies of believers in whom He dwells by His Spirit, the 
kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 




Boston, May 15, 1894. 



INTRODUCTION 

By the Rev. RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D., LL. D. 

It is gratifying to know that the volume on Con- 
gregationalism has been prepared, and is to be pub- 
lished, to which the writer of these lines is asked to 
contribute a brief Introductory Note. A popular 
account of the principles and the history of Congrega- 
tional churches should have its interest for all who 
know what such churches have done in the world, 
while it may naturally be expected to be specially 
welcome to those knowing more or less of the system, 
yet not fully informed as to Its characteristics or as to 
their development in the past. 

The present writer is by no means a prejudiced par- 
tisan for particular forms of practice commonly associ- 
ated with this scheme of church-order. On the other 
hand he sees certain excellences in various other 
methods and forms of action, and could no doubt 
adjust himself to them if occasion required. But he 
has lived and worked In the Congregational fellowship 
during all the years of his Christian life, as his fathers 
had done for two centuries before, and his attachment 
to what he conceives to be distinctive in its principles 
is naturally strong. Perhaps, too, his testimony con- 
cerning this may not be weakened In force by the 
fact that it has in it the suggestions of experience ; as 
one who has long lived In a house may fairly be sup- 

vii 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

posed to know more of its internal arrangements and 
fitnesses for use than an outside observer, who has 
seen only its walls, windows, gables, and chimney-tops. 
So he gladly consents to say a few words commending 
this volume to the attention of those to whom his 
name may be known. 

The two fundamental principles in the Congre- 
gational scheme of the relation of churches to each 
other are obvious and familiar : First, that any per- 
manent congregation of disciples, accepting God's 
revelation of himself in the Scriptures, and personally 
consecrated to Christ the Head, associating themselves, 
with their households, for the worship of God and the 
administration of Christian ordinances, constitutes a 
church ; complete in itself, competent to elect and set 
apart its officers, to adopt its rules, to arrange its own 
forms of worship, and in general to manage its par- 
ticular affairs in the way which shall seem to it best, 
under constant and reverent reference to the precept 
and guidance of the Heavenly King: Second, that 
every such church is bound to live in fellowship and 
communion, of faith, of spirit, and of work, with every 
other ; to give to others aid and counsel when these 
are needed, to seek their fraternal aid and counsel when 
important action is to be taken by itself, or when dif- 
ferences of judgment and feeling arise within it, and 
fraternally to co-operate with them in all good works. 

These two principles — the independence and auton- 
omy, under Christ, of the local church, and the obli- 
gation of fellowship with others always resting upon 
it — are what give to Congregationalism its name, and 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

what impart to it any virtue which belongs to it as a 
scheme of general church-order. They have been well 
described as the two foci of its ellipse. They are the 
two responsive and regulating forces in its organic 
system. It is not '' Independency," while it still looks 
askance on any comprehensive permanent organization 
in which the life of the local congregation is liable to 
be practically merged. Affiliated " churches " — not one 
all-embracing ''Church," least of all "The Church" — 
are what it finds in the New Testament, and what it 
seeks to reproduce wherever it prevails. 

At the same time, in the relations to each other of 
the disciples associated in such churches it recognizes 
a normal equality of right and privilege, a real and 
effective brotherhood of believers, and estimates office 
as ministerial only, never as conveying endowment of 
prerogative. Character and wisdom are in its view the 
only proper conditions of influence, and the pastor him- 
self is fitly a fellow-member with those of whom he 
should be also leader and guide. The notion of the 
dependence of church-life on any class of officers set 
over it, and supplying this life from superior heights, 
is as foreign to Congregationalism as would be the 
notion in society that household life and domestic har- 
mony require to be conferred by official supervisors. 
From within outward, from beneath upward, is the law 
of the progress of life, in the spiritual as in the 
natural world. To try to reverse the process in 
churches is irrational in theory, and practically as 
dangerous, history shows, as an attempt to set the 
growing tree on its branches instead of its roots. 



X INTRODUCTION. 

The Christian life in individual souls, and thus in 
the permanent societies which these form, is recog- 
nized as ingenerated by the Spirit of God, through the 
ministry of the truth, as that is set before men in the 
Scriptures, and as it has been substantially accepted 
and illustriously verified in the experience of faithful 
disciples in all evangelical communions. Congre- 
gationalism has, accordingly, no universal creed-form. 
It is not limited as to statements of the Faith by any 
human confessions or catechisms, however careful, 
however venerable. It gets large light from such, now 
as in the past ; but it does not acknowledge in them 
any decisive and permanent law. The Bible is to it 
the living and perennial basis of the church ; and it 
holds itself bound only by the Scriptures, and by the 
supreme instruction of the Lord. Yet the truth, thus 
apprehended in its simplicity and superlative majesty, 
has for those who honor and maintain this form of 
church-order continuing authority, and an inestimable 
importance. It is supremely valued as the Divine 
means by which, in God's grace, men are to be led 
into personal, affectionate and self-consecrating faith, 
toward the Redeemer and King of the world. Con- 
gregationalism is evangelical and practical. It never 
recognizes orthodox belief as enough in itself, though 
valuing this, and seeking to cherish and to distribute 
it. It never seeks simpl}^ to educate men's minds, to 
add polish to their manners, or to train them in social 
amenities and eleo^ances. Its one aim is that throuofh 
the truth, under the influence of God's Spirit, men 
shall be brought, in glad surrender of heart and life. 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

into fellowship with Christ, to become true members 
first of His church on earth, and then, immortally, of 
His Church Triumphant. 

Of this transformation the truth is the instrument. 
Believing disciples form the church. Preaching, teach- 
ing, and godly living, are therefore the vehicles on 
which the Divine influence moves ; and any theory of 
efficacious grace conveyed on sacraments, as the means 
of producing this interior essential life of the soul, is as 
remote from Congregationalism as would be a theory 
of vivifying star-dust to account for summer blooms 
and growths. The two Christian sacraments, of 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are permanent and 
commanding in its churches ; but they are signs and 
seals of faith, means of cherishing and renewing, not 
of imparting, spiritual life. It has no possible use or 
room for mechanical mediations or manual imposi- 
tions to initiate the faith which cometh by hearing, and 
by the Word of God, under the silent but mighty im- 
pression of the Divine Spirit. 

Congregationalism has always insisted, therefore, as 
it now does, on an educated ministry ; a ministry rich 
in character, of course, fervent in zeal, of a believing 
temper, but also of instructed and trained power ; a 
ministry able clearly to apprehend the truth, and 
earnestly and effectively to set this forth to men. It 
has built and endowed great institutes of learning — 
academic, collegiate, theological — to secure such a 
ministry; and on its success in accomplishing this, not 
on any skill in formulating confessions or church- 
rules, it depends for the furtherance of the cause 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

of the Master, so far as that is committed to its 
churches. 

It is, as it always has been, constitutionally, a mis- 
sionary system ; seeking not so much to form churches 
of a particular name or order, at home or abroad, 
as to propagate the Gospel, by books. Bibles, earnest 
preaching, in our own land and in others : where 
the frontiersman has pushed his way into the wilder- 
ness ; where the people of ancient lands want a light 
and hope which they do not find in ancestral philoso- 
phies or religions ; or where the brutal savage grovels 
in his inherited filth and vice. The first missionary 
societies in this country, for either the home or the 
foreign field, sprang up among its churches. This 
work has always been nobly sustained by them, and 
has been widely effective. 

Congregationalism may fairly claim to be, by its 
nature, a catholic system, in a sense and to a degree in 
which none surpasses it. It recognizes all assemblies 
of disciples holding the Head and permanently 
associated for His service as true churches, whether or 
not wearing its denominational name. If some of 
these churches prefer to be organized in Presbyterian 
fashion, with lay-elders and under supervision of a 
permanent church-court, that is their privilege. There 
were such churches in the earlier time, as there have 
been since ; and their contributions have been vast 
to the culture and the progress of Christendom. If 
churches prefer to frame or to adopt a full liturgy 
for public worship, Congregationalism never ques- 
tions their liberty to do so, though preferring in 



I 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

its more immediate circles the freer forms which 
have for it ancestral commendation. If baptism 
by immersion, administered only to adult believers, 
seem to any the preferable way, nearest the New 
Testament pattern, the church-life continues in the 
congregations so ordered, and it is properly recog- 
nized as vigorous and useful. Even if congregations 
desire and elect Episcopal superintendence, it is accord- 
ing to the genius of this system that they should have 
it, though it must be hoped that their acceptance of 
it will not carry with it the conception of any peculiar 
Divine right in alleged successors of those Apostles 
whose very office, as Dean Alford emphatically said, 
*' precluded the idea of succession or renewal," and 
that it will not lead to denial or forgetfulness of the 
great truth energetically set forth by Bishop Light- 
foot, that ''the only priests under the Gospel, desig- 
nated as such in the New Testament, are the saints, 
the members of the Christian brotherhood," and that 
upon officers or ministers of the church ''the sacerdotal 
title is never once conferred." 

It certainly seems to those trained in Congregational 
principles that in this allowance of liberty to all local 
churches, concerning forms of worship and methods of 
organization and government, it closely approaches 
the New Testament examples, while in seeking a 
true spiritual unity, with no required outward uni- 
formity of rule and rite, it is helping to realize the 
ideal of the Master, for which He wrought, suffered, 
and prayed — " that they all may be one : as Thou, 
Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

one in us." No apparent difference could conceivably 
have been greater than between the man of Nazareth 
and the Infinite Father, while they were eternally one in 
inmost life. Thus, as we conceive, the true unit}^ of 
Christendom is finally to come : differences of adminis- 
trations, diversities of operations, but the same Lord. 

Of course, as all know, this particular scheme of 
church-order has from the first widely prevailed in 
New England. It seems germane to the liberal, prac- 
tical, and truth-trusting spirit of the American people. 
Local self-control is with us a public policy. If democ- 
racy is legitimate anywhere it must be in the church. 
So churches and communicants of this order have been 
multiplied threefold in the recent half-century. A still 
more rapid visible progress may be expected in genera- 
tions to come ; while the principles which are vital and 
organific in the system have gone more widely than 
its special name, and are to-day more extensively 
shown than ever before, in practice if not in theo- 
retical declaration, in all Protestant communions. In 
a true and large sense these principles, we are confi- 
dent, have the future for their own. 

The present volume, by Dr. Albert E. Dunning, 
which traces the history of Congregationalism, and 
elucidates its principles, ought to have wide circulation 
among intelligent and thoughtful Christians, here and 
abroad. I trust that the blessing of the great Head 
of all the churches will rest upon it ! 

Brooklyn, N. Y., May lo, 1894. 



INTRODUCTION 

By Major-General OLIVER OTIS HOWARD, LL. D. 

When a young man, the writer of this introductory 
letter, soon after his conversion, found himself asso- 
ciated with strong advocates of the Episcopacy. His 
friends were decided Christian men of extensive read- 
ing and research ; and for a time their arguments 
appeared to him to be strong and conclusive that ** the 
true Church" was indeed a small one which by ''apos- 
tolic succession " had come down to us through cen- 
turies without a break in the line of bishops. The 
writings of the Rev. Dr. Pusey and other like advo- 
cates were put into his hands. The impressions upon 
his mind and heart were so strong that not only did 
it seem for a while that bishops, priests and deacons 
were essential to the Church of Christ, but that other 
branches like the Presbyterians and Congregationalists 
were in error, and that their clergymen were not 
ordained ministers of Christ. Soon the arguments 
carried him on to the Roman Church, till he said to 
himself : " If the unbroken apostolic succession in the 
line of bishops is essential to the living Church, the 
Roman faith has precedence." Since then it has never 
seemed at all strange to him that so many of his 
friends who were high churchmen at last joined the 
Roman Catholic communion. 

Further reading of the Scriptures, study and thought 

XV 



I 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

brought the writer back to his proper home in the 
Congregational household, and there he was admitted 
and confirmed with his family. This is perhaps too 
personal for general reading, yet it may chance to 
influence and help some other searcher for the fold 
of Christ. It is no way claimed that the Episcopal 
divisions of the grand army of the Lord are not good 
and wise, and in that sense under special divine favor, 
but the grander truth may dawn upon a man's heart 
that our Lord is in all His branches and that ''wisdom 
is justified of all her children." It takes all the instru- 
mentalities to reach the nooks and corners of the 
world. But what would the writer not have given 
during his probation for such a historic compendium 
as this volume furnishes ! 

In these days an Ism Is not of great moment; it is 
but an indication of the division lines in the hosts of 
the Lord — the hosts who are now on the march or 
already battling with the foes of truth and righteous- 
ness. But organization is important, and a Christian 
wants to feel that he belongs to one that Is at least 
defensible. The author of this book, a review of all 
the divisions from the apostles' time till now, showing 
the origin of the Congregational polity in the earliest 
period, and following it through the ages without 
prolixity, with comprehensive clearness and with 
explicit and full statements of facts, p7^o and con, has 
done a great work. Perhaps a little sectarian spirit 
could be detected in some of his pages by some old- 
fashioned Christian — some follower of John Knox 
or John Wesley. He rather feels that our Ism is the 
real Church, and that the others have somehow 
departed from the original simplicity of organization 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

and worship. Once a gentleman, member of a Con- 
gregational church out West, was walking to a Con- 
gregational house of worship with a lady, an ardent 
Episcopalian. She tried to show him the superiority 
of the Episcopal service to any other, and also how far 
short the other came of the true faith. The gentle- 
man replied as they entered the vestibule : " All right ; 
perhaps yours is hetter than mine as you claim, but 
this one, dear madam, is mine ! Your home may be 
nicer than ours, yet ours is ours ! " So we detect little 
harm present or prospective in an author who clings 
with some fervor to a hearty description of his own 
household of work and worship, and who is able to 
trace the pedigree of his family connection to the very 
fountain-head. The readers of this book will particu- 
larly enjoy the history of the Congregational churches 
of New England, where the rigid and liberal inter- 
preters of Holy Writ are all given a fair exhibit. The 
causes of the Pilgrim leaving England ; the sojourn in 
Holland ; his arrival in America ; his faith and purpose 
and trial on New England's shores — no descendant of 
his is ever averse to the story of these things, and 
here, though an old one, it is told concisely and well. 
It will hereafter become a text for the jovial and elo- 
quent speakers at the yearly anniversaries of New 
England societies which gather in all our great towns 
from Boston to San Francisco. 

Our youth cannot be made too familiar with the 
actual foundation of our civil government, arranged 
for on board the " Mayflower," but secured at Plym- 
outh, Mass.; a government of the people, where the 
flag, an emblem of the people's sovereignty, forever 
ensures a free Church. The church that best assim- 



I 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

ilates that government of republican form and order 
Is very near and dear to patriotic hearts. 

The chapter on growth and expansion, taking us to 
Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, Maryland, and Virginia, is of marked 
interest. Who does not want to know more about 
Roger Williams, John Eliot and the Indian missions ? 
An early Congregational church in Virginia, and its 
transference to Maryland, and what came of it ; the 
Virginia churches of our order can trace their regular 
succession after a lapse ; and Washington Congrega- 
tionalists will take on new courage and vigor, and push 
on to extend their simple methods of formal ordination 
to cover unoccupied fields of the South. Baptists in 
the South, who at bottom are usually good Congre- 
gatlonallsts, will read with avidity a history which 
strengthens their claim in that region to divide with 
our Methodist brothers their call to all races of men. 

One gets into the valleys and shadows of things 
when he sees " Halfway Covenants," troubles with 
Quakers, times of cleavage, religious declension, dif- 
ferences with Episcopalians, witchcraft delusion ; but 
if of '* Orthodox blood " he must have a degree of sat- 
isfaction to answer soberly the laughlngs of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes and other humoristic reformers. 
Here with some shiverings while in the bottom of 
the chasms he can pick up the facts ; one should 
want nothing better ! 

At Key West, Fla., the writer of this article 
recently found two plants that greatly interested him. 
One was an East Indian tree, called the banyan, and 
the other was a new Congregational church. To his 
mind there are in general many points of resemblance ; 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

there Is a center tree ; there are also other smaller 
trees, quite independent in their growth, which rise 
from the ground, and more little trees still that start 
from wide-spreading branches, and grow down till they 
touch the earth ; there they root themselves. All 
these up and down growths keep Increasing in number 
and size till they finally become one immense tree. 
There at Key West came the Congregational home 
missionary. He found a few Christians scattered about 
that place who wanted some fellowship and a house of 
worship. He explained to them the Congregational 
polity as he understood it, and showed them the ordi- 
nary expressions of faith that our people adopt. A 
church was founded, and by the help of the Home Mis- 
sionary Society, a church was organized, and a house of 
worship erected. Outside were Independent growths, 
bands associated for prayer, Sunday schools, shoots 
thrown off from other churches from one cause and 
another. All these began to group around the original 
plant which the missionary had nourished. New con- 
verts then came from the church and its accessories. 
The apparently Independent growths coming from the 
ground were brought nearer and made more homoge- 
neous by the converts who seemed to spring from 
branches and other growths, till they secured their own 
bases, filled up the spaces and made a strong central, 
yet wide-spreading tree. 

It was a Banyan Church also that we planted at 
Washington In 1865. It was a worrisome and some- 
times exasperating concern at first, in its make up. It 
took beggings and pleadings to secure money enough 
to build a meeting-house. It took ex-par te councils 
and general councils and much fostering care to get it 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

well-rooted. Offshoots in time there were ; several 
in Washington and in the District of Columbia, and 
several more in the bordering States ! They were 
seeming rivals and wondrously independent. But by 
the common sap of God's Spirit the central trunk has 
become at last large and thriving, and all the rootlets 
are now united by a large annual conference where 
fellowship so prevails as to suggest the likeness of 
one great tree. 

We cannot maintain very well that our order is the 
best of all. Our brethren of other communions see in 
us many weaknesses. The independence of the indi- 
vidual church every home-born and home-bred Congre- 
gational believer insists on as a sine qua non. How 
can heresy and schism be prevented where there is no 
authority beyond the individual church ? '* Look," 
they say, ** there went off from you the Baptists, then 
the Unitarians ! They all preserve your methods, so 
that now there are three bodies instead of one. You 
cannot even maintain a uniform creed !" 

Are you sure, brethren, that it is necessary to 
Christ's kingdom to keep solidly to one trunk of 
opinions on all topics ? If so, Christ's Church is and 
ever will be a huge failure. 

Again they aver that for the most part we have 
a double-headed system — a church and a society to 
take care of the individual church. Surely there is no 
harm in this arrangement where it is expedient to have 
a society for holding and managing property ; but this 
society is not essential to any church, Congregational 
or other, but merely a way of doing business through 
a competent agent, the society being the agent. Again 
the old proverb is quoted against our Congregational 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

efficiency, namely : " What is everybody's business is 
nobody's business." This is. never fair to us, for all 
democratic bodies work through chosen committees or 
agents, so that very little work is done directly by the 
whole body. But we must not be betrayed into a pro- 
longed discussion which is not at all profitable. 

Any Christian church of any communion is efficient 
enough if its individual members have in their indi- 
vidual hearts the spirit of the Master, and by the spur 
of His presence do the best they can to live like Him 
and carry out His injunctions. The larger the indi- 
vidual liberty, in co-partnership with the Lord's Spirit, 
the better. The larger the liberty of the individual 
church in similar co-partnership, the better for its 
healthful and effective growth and undertakings. 

The Congregational history before us gives us In 
graphic and acceptable shape the best defense of our 
polity that I have seen. Let us ever be considered 
a part and parcel of the army of Christ! We have 
our distinctive flag ; our division is known by the other 
communions, for we are in the field of enterprising 
work. We go to all climes and to all peoples alongside 
of Presbyterians and Episcopalians. We have like 
them our conflicts within and without ; but we do try 
to always keep unfurled to the breeze the great com- 
mon banner of our Lord, on which is inscribed : '' Go 
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature." 

This banner shows to all Christians and to all 
opposers that, whether in the ranks or in the skirmish 
or on the picket-line, we do belong to the army of the 
Lord, our Saviour, and are determined to bear our 
part in the great contest of truth against error, for 



XXll INTRODUCTION. 

right against wrong, for the spread of light and knowl- 
edge and for the salvation of human souls. 

All the methods of all communions working together 
with one Saviour, one faith and one baptism of the 
spirit, are best of all. But each individual church must 
perform its functions, as each individual man and 
woman and child must perform the individual part. 
We do not want to be in error nor be deceived. '' But 
being sincere, in love grow up unto Him in all things 
who is the head, even Christ : from whom the whole 
body fitly joined together and compacted, by that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working 
in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the 
body unto the edifying of itself in love." 

In the hope of promoting to some degree the largest 
charity, we join our brethren in offering to Christian 
people and honest seekers after knowledge this book 
which the author has so diligently, faithfully and 
acceptably prepared. 

Major-General, U. S. A. 
Governor's Island, N. Y., May 15, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. — Apostolic Congregationalism. 

PAGE 

Christ's Teaching- Concerning His Kingdom — His Teaching Concerning His Church 
— Election of a Twelfth Apostle by the Whole Congregation — The First Christian 
Church at Pentecost a Congregational Church — Election of Deacons by the 
Whole Church — Stoning of Stephen (a Deacon) — Congregational Church in 
Samaria — Another in Joppa — Congregational Action of the Church at Jerusalem — 
The Church at Antioch — It Becomes a Missionary Church — Congregational 
Churches in Asia Minor — Dispute in the Church at Antioch — Council of Churches 
at Jerusalem — Dissension at Antioch Renewed by Peter — Peter Rebuked by Paul — 
Churches Organized by Paul on his Second and Third Missionary Journeys — Paul's 
Instructions Concerning Church Government and Discipline — Duties of Church 
Officers — Condition of Churches at Close of the Apostolic Period — Congregation- 
alism the Result of the Teachings of Christ and the Work of the Apostles, . 33 

CHAPTER II. — Apostolic Congregationalism Revived in Later Times. 

Apostolic Congregationalism Gradually Superseded by Episcopacy — Early Forms 
of Puritanism and Their Suppression by Romanism — Revival of Learning in 
Europe — Wickliffe and the Lollards — Origin of English Puritanism — Acts of 
Supremacy and Uniformity — Resistance of Puritans to Domination of the English 
Church — " The Privye Church " — Robert Browne— Grounds of his Opposition to 
the Church of England — Principles of Congregationalism — Coppin and Thacker 
hanged — Browne's Return to Episcopacy, and his Death — Greenwood and Bar- 
rowe in Prison — Their Writings — John Penry — The Mar-prelate Tracts — Penry 
Becomes a Separatist — Francis Johnson Suppresses the Book of Barrowe and 
Greenwood — Becomes a Separatist and Pastor of the First Congregational Church 
in London — Its Officers and Form of Government — Persecutions of the Church 
— Barrowe and Greenwood Tried, Condemned and Hung — Penry Imprisoned — 
His Counsels to His Family and the Church — His Trial and Execution, . . 51 

CHAPTER III. — Congregationalists in Exile in Holland. 

London Congregationalists Escape to Amsterdam — The Separatists of Gainsborough 
and Scrooby — John Robinson — William Brewster — Escape to Amsterdam — Trou- 
bles of the London Church in Amsterdam — Its Confession of Faith — Scrooby Emi- 
grants remove to Leyden — Their Experiences in Leyden — Their Plan to Emigrate 
to America — Difficulties in their Way — Thomas Weston — Compact between Ad- 
venturers and Pilgrims — Departure of Pilgrims from Holland — The *' Mayflower" 
Leaves Plymouth for the New World — Faith and Purpose of the Pilgrims, . -71 

CHAPTER IV.— The Pilgrim Church in its Permanent Home. 

Pilgrims Arrive off Cape Cod — The Compact in the " Mayflower " — The Landing at 
Plymouth — The First Winter — Bradford Elected Governor — The First Wedding — 
New Arrivals by the Ship "Fortune" — The First House of Worship — Thomas 
Weston's Troublesome Colony — Encounter with Indians— Discouragements Fol- 



XXIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

lowed by Blessings — Fasting and Thanksgiving — Captain Gorges — Lyford and 
Oldham Expelled — Contract between Pilgrims and English Adventurers Ended — 
Death of John Robinson in Leyden — Arrival of the Leyden Remnant at Plymouth, 87 

CHAPTER v.— The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. 

Their Purpose in Coming to New England — The First Puritan Settlement, Cape Ann 
— Removal to Naumkeag — Massachusetts Bay Company Organized in England — 
Endecott Arrives at Salem — Dr. Fuller Visits Salem — New Arrivals with Four 
Ministers — First Church Organized in New England — Its Constitution and Char- 
acter — Abortive Attempt to Start an Episcopal Church — Confession and Covenant 
of Salem Church — Transfer of Massachusetts Bay Company to New England — 
Church from Dorchester, England, Settles in Dorchester, Mass. — Arrival of John 
Winthrop and Fleet at Salem — Removal to Charlestown — A Day of Fasting and 
Prayer — Churches Formed at Charlestown and Watertown — First General Court 
— Removal to Boston — New Church at Charlestown — Other Churches Formed, . 100 

CHAPTER VI.— Early American Congregationalism. 

Independence and Fellowship of the P^irst New England Churches — Character of the 
Colonists^-Cotton, Hooker, Stone — Principles they Advocated — Cotton, Teacher 
of First Church, Boston — Hooker and Stone at Newtown — Citizenship Limited to 
Church Membership — Organization of Churches Controlled by General Court — 
Thursday Lectures Established — Ministers Resist Laud's Attempt to secure Return 
of the Charter — Roger Williams Attacks the Charter — He Attempts to Use the 
Churches to Control Civil Legislation — Williams Banished from the Colony — 
Companies from Dorchester and Watertown Remove to Connecticut — Hooker 
and His Church Remove to Connecticut — Harvard College Founded — Anne 
Hutchinson — Sir Henry Vane^Mrs. Hutchinson's Meetings— General Court Con- 
venes Council of Ministers — Mrs. Hutchinson's Teachings Condemned — Mrs. 
Hutchinson and Mr. Wheelwright Banished — Her Further Career and Death, . 118 

CHAPTER VII.— The Cambridge Synod. 

John Davenport Arrives in Massachusetts — New Haven Colony Founded — Inquiries 
from Ministers in England — Answers of Cotton and Richard Mather — West- 
minster Assembly — Synod in Cambridge, Mass., 1643 — Hooker's " Sum of Church 
Discipline" — Opposition to " The New England Way" — Trouble Between Hing- 
ham Men and the General Court — Objections to Ecclesiastical Authority — Appeal to 
Parliament Forbidden — First Meeting of Synod, 1646 — Independents Gain Power 
in England — Westminster Assembly Prepares Confession of Faith — General Court 
Requests American Synod to Prepare a Confession of Faith — Final Session of 
Synod, 1648— Cambridge Platform — Approved by General Court — Body of Liber- 
ties — First Constitution of Connecticut — Order of Public Worship in the Churches, 137 

CHAPTER VIII.— Growth and Expansion. 

Cessation of Emigration to New England — Confederation of Colonies — Plymouth 
Colony, its Towns and Churches — Churches of Massachusetts — Connecticut 
Churches — New Haven Colony — Its Organization and Churches — New Hampshire 
Settlements and Churches —Settlements in Maine — Rhode Island and First Baptist 
Church — Roger Williams, Mrs Hutchinson, Samuel Gorton — First Congrega- 
tional Churches in Rhode Island — Churches in Long Island — Congregational 
Church in Virginia — Churches on Islands off the Atlantic Coast — Efforts to Chris- 
tianize the Indians — John Eliot — The Mayhews at Martha's Vineyard — Mission- 
ary Society Formed in England — Indian Christian Communities — Eliot's Indian 
Bible — New England Congregationalism at the End of the Seventeenth Century, 152 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV 

CHAPTER IX.— The Halfway Covenant. 

Early Qualifications for Church Membership — Rights of Baptized Children — Con- 
tinued Discussion of the Subject— Rights of Children of such Baptized persons — 
Connecticut Court Asks Questions— Massachusetts Court Appoints Ministers to 
Consider the Questions, 1657 — Their Answers — Further Discussion among the 
Churches — General Court of Massachusetts Summons Synod, 1662 — Propositions 
of the Synod — Their Reception by the Churches — Troubles with Quakers— Per- 
secutions of Baptists — Attack on New England Congregationalism by Charles II. — 
General Court of Connecticut Asks Ministers to Consider Claims of Unregenerate 
Persons to Privileges of Church Membership — Divisions in Local Churches — 
Synod in Connecticut in 1667 — Lines of Cleavage in the Churches, . . ,171 

CHAPTER X. — Religious Declension and Reformation. 

Dissensions Cause Spiritual Decline — Wars and Other Calamities — Petition to the 
Massachusetts General Court to Call Synod — Reforming Synod of 1679-80 — The 
Savoy Confession — Its Adoption by Massachusetts Churches— Good Fruits from 
the Synod — Recall of the Charter of Massachusetts— Old South Meeting-house 
Taken by For(?e by EpiscopaliaiK— Cotton Mather — Revolution of 1689 — The 
Witchcraft Delusion — Mingled Gains and Losses, 189 

CHAPTER XL — Conflicting Tendencies in Church Government. 

Poverty and Weakness of the Churches — Massachusetts Convention of Ministers — 
Ministerial Associations — Drift toward Making Councils Governing Bodies — Con- 
servative and Liberal Parties — Organization of Brattle Street Church — Efforts to 
Restore Peace — Renewed Strife — "Order of the Gospel" and "Gospel Order 
Revived " — Dissension in Harvard College — Withdrawal of Increase Mather from 
its Presidency — Proposals of 1705 — John Wise's Attack on Them — Founding of 
Yale College — The Saybrook Synod — Heads of Agreement Adopted by the 
Synod — Consociation of Churches — Permanent Associations of Ministers — Action 
of the Synod Confirmed by the Connecticut General Court — Results of the Synod, 205 

CHAPTER XII.— The Great Awakening. 

Indian Wars, Internal Dissensions, Growth of Episcopacy — Death of Increase Mather 
— Failure to Legislate for a Revival— Death of Cotton Mather — Jonathan Edwards 
His Ordirtation and Marriage — Religious Condition of the Colonies — Effects 
of Halfway Covenant — Theology of Edwards — Effects of his Preaching — Revival 
of ^735 — Edwards' " Narrative of Surprising Conversions" — George Whitefield — 
His Visit to New England in 1740 — Effects of his Preaching, .... 228 

CHAPTER XIII. — The Great Awakening (continued). 

Progress of the Revival — Gilbert Tennent's Preaching in Boston — The Revival in 
Connecticut — Awakening Opposition — Davenport's Mischievous Work — Persecu- 
tion of Revivalists in Connecticut — The Controversy in Massachusetts — Whitefield's 
Second Visit — Results of the Revival — Later History of Jonathan Edwards, . . 250 

CHAPTER XIV.— Congregationalists in the War of the Revolution. 

The Chief Motive in Originating the War — Encroachments of Episcopacy — Influence 
of Congregational Ministers in Civil Government — Their Controversy with the 
English Hierarchy — Resistance of American People to Episcopacy— Comparative 
Strength of Congregationalism in New England — Hostility of the British Army 
to Congregationalism — Meeting-houses Destroyed by British Troops — Congrega- 
tional Ministers in the War — Influence of Congregationalism in Shaping the New 
Government — The Principles of Congregationalism the Principles of the Republic, 265 



< 



K 



XXVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV.— The Unitarian Departure. 

PAGE 

Beginnings of Unitarianism in New England — Different Schools of Theology — Hop- 
kinsianism — Views of Mayhew, Chauncey, Thacher — First Appearance of Divid- 
ing Lines Between Unitarians and Trinitarians — King's Chapel — Unitarianism in 
Europe — Revival of 1800 — Massachusetts Missionary Society — General Association 
of Massachusetts — Harvard College Captured by the " Liberal" Party — Andover 
Seminary Founded — Convention Sermons — Codman at Dorchester — Park Street 
Church — A. B. C. F. M. Formed — Unitarianism in Connecticut — Parkman's Reply 
to Unitarians in England — Opposing Parties on the Eve of Disruption, . . 277 

CHAPTER XVL— The Unitarian Departure {continued). 

The Crisis Reached — Charges and Denials — Lines of Division Drawn — The Dedham 
Case — Complete Separation between the Two Bodies — What is Unitarianism ? — 
Its Spread through Massachusetts — Its Intellectual, Political and Social Prestige 
— Unitarian Church in Baltimore — Amherst College Founded — Lyman Beecher in 
Boston — Effects of the Revival — Foreign Missions — Home Missions — Periodical 
Literature — Parsons Cooke's Sermon — Hartford Seminary Founded — Strength and 
Weakness of Orthodoxy — Strength and Weakness of Unitarianism — Service of 
Unitarianism to Orthodoxy — Causes of the Failure of Unitarianism, . . , 298 

CHAPTER XVII.— The Disastrous Plan of Union. 

Union of Connecticut Congregationalists and Presbyterians — Plan of Union — Its 
Purpose and Advantages — Why Presbyterianism Prevailed — Why Congregational- 
ism Failed — Old and New Schools of Presbyterians — The Exscinding Acts — Heresy 
Trials— State Associations — Formed — Friction between New School Presbyterians 
and Congregationalists — Plan of Union Abandoned, 318 

CHAPTER XVIIL— Organized Christian Work. 

Congregationalism a Missionary Movement — A. B. C. F. M.: its Beginning — Its 
Missionaries Ordained in Salem — Judson and Newell in Calcutta — Death of Harriet 
Newell — First Mission to the Mahrattas — Other Missions Established — Effect of 
Tidings from Them — The " Morning Star" — Missions in Japan — Fields Occupied 
— Results — Educational Work — Officers — A. E. S. — Its Organization in 1816 — 
Union with Western College Society — N. W. E. C. — Present Field and Aims of 
the Society — A. H. M. S. — Previous Organizations — Its Formation in 1826 — 
Work of the Society— C. S.-S. & P. S.— Its History— Its Receipts— A. M. A.— Its 
History — Its Connection with Oberlin College — Its Work for the Freedmen — Its 
Schools and Universities — Its Churches — Mountain Whites — Chinese — C. C. B. S. 
— Its History and Work — Organization of the Six Societies — Ministerial Relief 
Fund— A. C. A., .... 334 

CHAPTER XIX.— Education. 

Puritan Views of Education — Harvard College — Yale — Dartmouth — Williams — 
Bowdoin — Amherst — Illinois — Oberlin — Beloit — Olivet — Berea — Ripon — Wash- 
burn — Tabor — Carleton — Drury — Doane — Colorado — Yankton — Pacific— Whit- 
man — Pomona — Academies — Education for Women — Mary Lyon — Mount Holyoke 
— Other Institutions Formed on its Plan — Smith — Wellesley — Equipment of 
Colleges — Theological Seminaries — List of Colleges and Seminaries, . . 363 

CHAPTER XX.— The New Era. 

Evidences of its Beginning — Doctrinal Discussions — Edwards A. Park — Horace Bush- 
nell — Unity through Diversity — Opposition to Slavery — "Uncle Tom's Cabin " — 
Henry Ward Beecher in England — Unity in the Cause of Freedom — Development 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxvii 

PAGE 

of Polity — Leonard Bacon — Henry Martyn Dexter — Growth in Michigan — Illinois 
— Iowa — Wisconsin — Minnesota — Missouri — Kansas and Nebraska — Colorado — 
Dakota — Pacific States — Southern States — British Provinces — Statistics for 1863 
and 1893 Compared — Growth by Decades — Ten Churches Showing Greatest 
Growth — Ten Largest Churches — Cities where Congregationalism is Strongest — 
Statistics of Denominations — Congregationahsts in Other Countries — Congrega- 
tional Clubs — Institutional Churches — Future of Congregationalism, . . 393 

CHAPTER XXI — Congregationalism in the Northwest. 

The Northwest Territory — Manasseh Cutler and the Ohio Company — First Church, 
Marietta — The Connecticut Land Company and the Western Reserve — Results of 
the Plan of Union — New England Ideas in the West — Work of the Connecticut 
Society in Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana — Work of Other Congregational Mis- 
sionary Societies — Building up Christian Colleges — Their \'alue to the Church and 
the Country — College Men in the Union Army — The Louisiana Purchase — 
Growth of Congregationalism in Missouri — Iowa — Minnesota — Kansas — Nebraska 
— Other Great States — Northwest Pacific States — California, .... 419 

CHAPTER XXII.— The Story of the Young People. 

Puritan Training of Children — Modern Methods — Young People's Associations in 
the Eighteenth Centur}' — Early History of Sunday Schools — Asa Bullard — Young 
People's Societies — Missionary Organizations — Young People's Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor— Its Fundamental Principle — Its Beginning in Portland, Me. — Its 
Pledge — Other Distinctive Features — The Junior Society — Local Unions and Con- 
ventions — The Origin of the Society in a Congregational Church — Interdenomina- 
tional and International Fellowship — Boys' Brigade — Brotherhood of Andrew and 
Philip — Future of Young People's Work for Christ, 446 

CHAPTER XXIII. — Congregational Literature. 

Congregationalism both the Creator and the Outgrowth of a Literature — The Earliest 
Writers on Polity — Subsequent Ecclesiastical, Theological and Missionary Treatises 
— Ministerial Pamphlets the Forerunners of Periodical Literature — The Rise of 
Monthlies and Quarterlies — The Congregational Quarterly — The Year Book — 
Periodicals Representing Different Seminaries — English Publications— Sunday- 
school Literature — The Origin and Development of Religious Newspapers — The 
Contributions of Congregational Writers to the Vanous Departments of General 
Literature : To Theology — To History — To Philosophy and Jurisprudence — To 
Biblical and Exegetical Literature — To Literature on Foreign Missions and Trans- 
lations of the Bible — To Hymnology — To Devotional Literature — To Sociology — 
To Fiction and Poetry, 467 

CHAPTER XXIV.— Visible Unity. 

Local Self-government and the Fellowship of the Churches Cardinal Principles — 
The Testimony of Our Fathers as to Unity — The Unity of the Church Catholic — 
The Unity of Our Churches — Unity in Sentiment — Visible Unity Seen in the 
Relations of Particular Churches to Each Other — Local Ecclesiastical Councils — 
The Great Co-operative Societies for Christian Work — Local Conferences of 
Churches — The State Organizations of Churches — The National Convention of 
1852 — The National Council of 1865 — The Established National Council of the 
Congregational Churches of the United States, 489 



LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 



The early history of Congregationalism in America is the 
early history of New England. The books which contain this 
history must be studied by those who would understand what 
Congregationalists have done for America. The most impor- 
tant of these books are mentioned in John Fiske's " The Begin- 
nings of New England," Bibliographical note, pp. 279-287. 
Standard histories of England and of the United States must 
of course be consulted. Dr. Dexter's " Congregationalism as 
Seen in Its Literature" contains a voluminous list of writings 
of Congregationalists, the result of the researches of a lifetime. 
Professor Williston Walker, in his ** Creeds and Platforms of 
Congregationalism," has prefixed to each chapter a compre- 
hensive list of authorities. 

The Congregational Library, in the Congregational House, 
Boston, is of great value, especially as the storehouse of local 
histories of churches and communities, the records of our 
benevolent institutions, schools and colleges, and of local and 
State organizations of churches. I am much indebted to the 
librarian, Dr. W. H. Cobb, and to his competent assistant, 
Miss Mary E. Stone, for placing in my hands literature which 
would otherwise have been inaccessible to me in preparing 
this volume. Loyal Congregationalists should see that his- 
torical sermons and other documents, and books of value to 
the denomination, find their way to the shelves of this library. 

The following works have been freely used in preparing this 
history, and most of them are accessible, at least to those who 
are near public libraries. The list might easily be prolonged. 

The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, 
as Seen in Its Literature. H. M. Dexter, D. D. 

Congregationalism, What It Is, Whence It Is, How It 
Works. H. M. Dexter, D. D. 



xxvm 



LIST OF AUTHORITIES xxix 

Handbook of Congregationalism. H. M. Dexter, D, D. 

Congregational History : 1 567-1 700. Waddington. 

Genesis of the New England Churches. L. Bacon, D. D. 

The Pilgrim Republic. Goodwin. 

Magnalia. Cotton Mather, D. D. 

Ecclesiastical History of New England. Felt. 

History of New England. Hubbard. 

History of New England. Five vols. Palfrey. 

History of New England. Journal from 1630-1649. John 
Winthrop. 

The English in America : The Pilgrim Colonies. Doyle. 

The Beginnings of New England. John Fiske. 

Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches of Massa- 
chusetts. Joseph S. Clark, D. D. 

History of Plymouth Plantation. William Bradford. 

Story of the Pilgrims. Rev. Morton Dexter. 

New England Congregationalism. White. 

History of Congregationalism. Rev. George Punchard. 

Lechford's Works. 

Works of Cotton, Hooker, Increase and Cotton Mather on 
polity. 

In the Series of The Makers of America: John Winthrop, 
by Rev. J. H. Twichell ; Thomas Hooker, by G. L. Walker, 
D. D., Cotton Mather, by Prof. Barrett Wendell. 

The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism. Williston 
Walker, Ph. D. 

History of the Colony of Massachusetts. Hutchinson. 

History of Connecticut. Hollister. 

History of Connecticut. J. Hammond Trumbull. 

Thirteen Historical Discourses. Leonard Bacon, D. D. 

Christian History. Two vols. Thomas Prince. 

History of the Old South Church, Boston. H. A. Hill. 

Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut. 

History of the First Church, Hartford, Conn. George Leon 
Walker, D. D. 

The Great Awakening. Rev. Joseph Tracy. 

Annals of the American Pulpit. Sprague. 

Cyclopaedia of Bibhcal, Theological and Ecclesiastical Litera- 
ture. McClintock and Strong. 



XXX LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 

Life and Times of Cotton Mather. A. P. Marvin, D. D. 

Life of Jonathan Edwards. Dwight. 

Life of Jonathan Edwards. Allen. 

Life of Jonathan Mayhew. Bradford. 

John Adams. An Address. Hon. Mellen Chamberlain. 

Autobiography of Lyman Beecher. Two vols. 

Life of Samuel Hopkins. Edwards A. Park, D. D. 

Life of Nathaniel Emmons. Edwai-ds A. Park, D. D. 

A Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy. George E. 
ElHs, D. D, 

Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England. 
Bishop Burgess. 

Historical Magazine. Article by Gillett. (With Bibli- 
ography). 

The Panoplist. 

The Massachusetts Missionary Magazine. 

The Quarterly Register. 

The Spirit of the Pilgrims. 

Outlines of Congregational History. Rev. G. Huntington. 

History of Harvard College. Josiah Quincy. 

History of Andover Seminary. Leonard Woods, D. D. 

Histories of Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst, Oberlin and 
other Colleges. 

Missions. Several Volumes by Rufus Anderson, D. D. 

Sketches of Missions. S. C. Bartlett, D. D. 

Lives of Truman Post, D. D., C. L. Goodell, D. D., and 
several other biographies of Congregational leaders. 

The Congregational Quarterly, 1 859-1 878, containing many 
valuable articles. 

Presbyterians. George P. Hays, D. D. 

Proceedings of the General Convention at Albany, 1852. 

Minutes of National Councils, State Associations and Con- 
ferences. 

Report of International Congregational Council, London, 
1891. 

Bound Volumes of the Home Missionary, Missionary 
Herald, and other denominational periodicals. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



portraits : 

Cotton, John, 
WiNTHROP, John, 
Davenport, John, 
Knollys, Hanserd, . 
Mather, Cotton, 
Edwards, Jonathan, 
Beecher, Lyman, 
Finney, Charles G., 
Anderson, Rufus. 
Armstrong, General S 
Wheelock, Eleazer, 
Lyon, Mary, . 
Hopkins, Mark, . 
BusHNELL, Horace, 
Sturtevant, J. M., 
Turner, Asa, . 
Atkinson, George H 
BuLLARD, Asa, 
Dexter, H. M., . 
Mason, Lowell, 
Bacon, Leonard, 



C, 



Frontispiece 
ii8 

137 
158 
189 
228 

307 
328 

334 
356 
363 
383 
393 
396 
412 

437 
443 
453 
467 
487 
489 



XTbeologtcal Seminaries : 

Andover, Mass., 
Bangor, Me., 
Chicago, III., 
Hartford, Conn., 
Oberlin, O., . 



289 
506 
513 
313 
370 



Q/d\\zo^z^ ant) IHniversities : 

Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., 
Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., 
Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., 
Berea College, Berea, Ky., 



308 

515 
432 
398 



XXXll 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

BowDOiN College, Brunswick, Me., . . .161 

Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., . . 461 

Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Col., . . 175 

Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., . . . 471 

DOANE College, Crete, Neb., .... 440 

FiSK University, Nashville, Tenn., . . . 354 

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., . . . 131 

Iowa College, Grinnell, Ia., .... 480 

Marietta College, Marietta, O., . . . . 421 

Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt., . . 495 

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, South Hadley, Mass., 384 

Oberlin College, Oberlin, O., . . . . 352 

Olivet College, Olivet, Mich., ..... 374 

RiPON College, Ripon, Wis., .... 255 

Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., . . . 464 

Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., . . 269 
Yale University, New Haven, Conn., . . .221 

Yankton College, Yankton, S. D., . . 500 



/IDiscellaneous : 

Congregational House, Boston, Mass., . . .361 

Doshisha (The), Kyoto, Japan, .... 339 

Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of American Liberty, 

Boston, Mass. Built 1742, .... 183 

John Robinson Memorial Tablet (The), . . -97 

Meeting-house of First Church, Salem, Mass., . iio 

Meeting-house of First Church, Hartford, Conn., . 129 
Meeting-house of First Church, Oakland, Cal., . 533 

Meeting-house of Pilgrim Church, St. Louis, Mo., . 406 
Meeting-house of Union Park Church, Chicago, III., 404 
Myles Standish House, Duxbury, Mass., . . -93 

Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass., . . 230 

Old State House, Boston, Mass., .... 273 
Park Street Meeting-house, Boston, Mass., . . 293 

ScROOBY Manor House, . . . . .73 

St. Helen's, Austerfield, England, . . . 63 



CONGREGATIONALISTS 
IN AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 

APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 

JESUS CHRIST in His ministry on the earth did 
not directly organize the visible church. But the 
principles of His teaching imperatively resulted in the 
establishment of church order. 

He chose and appointed twelve disciples to be with 
Him, and He invited all who would accept His teach- 
ing and do His will to follow Him. He taught them 
simple and great principles, and showed them by His 
example how to realize these principles in their lives. 
He declared that He came into the world to establish 
a kingdom which should continue forever ; that the 
way to enter into it was to repent of sin and to accept 
Him as Saviour and Lord. He taught that everyone 
who loved Him would obey His words, and that into 
every obedient soul God would by His Spirit enter to 
abide and rule there. He laid down the law of the 
kingdom as supreme love to God and love to one's 
neighbor as to himself. He taught that the kingdom 
began in renewed lives, and that it was to manifest 
itself in the gathering together of renewed persons in 



34 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the fellowship of spiritual love and obedience to Him ; 
and He promised to be present in every such company 
of His disciples. Such an association of believers 
naturally became a Christian church. 

Christ showed His disciples how the kingdom was 
to grow — by the Father's providential care over them, 
by their fellowship with Him and with one another in 
prayer and service, and by the work in and through 
them of the Holy Spirit whom He promised to send 
to them. He told them that He was to give Him- 
self to die as a ransom for many, for the remission 
of their sins; that He would rise from the dead, the 
Redeemer and the Judge of mankind, and that the 
issues of the judgment would be eternal life and eternal 
punishment. These are Christ's doctrines, and these 
doctrines the churches of Christ believe and proclaim 
to the world as the gospel. 

Only twice, so far as His words are recorded, did 
Christ mention the church by name. When He first 
revealed to His disciples that he was looking forward 
to his sufferings and death at the hands of His own 
nation He led them to confess whom they believed 
Him to be; and when Peter, speaking for them all, 
declared, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God," Jesus said that this was not merely a human 
opinion nor a fact based on human knowledge only, 
but that it was a revelation from His Father; and He 
added : "And I also say unto thee that thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I will build my church." Here He 
declared the basis on which His church is founded, and 
the means by which it spreads through the world. The 
church of Christ is neither built upon a man nor upon 
a creed, but upon living disciples of Christ confessing 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 35 

and proclaiming Him as the Son of the living God, 
because that fact has been revealed in them from His 
Father through the Holy Spirit. So the apostle to the 
Gentiles understood this statement of Christ when He 
wrote to them that they were "built upon the founda- 
tions of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Him- 
self being the chief corner stone." But Christ gave to 
no man or men pre-eminence in His church. He said 
to His disciples, who had asked that they might rank 
above others : *' Ye know that the rulers of the Gen- 
tiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise 
authority over them. Not so shall it be among you!^ 
He constantly taught them that the only pre-eminence 
they were to seek must be in the line of the greatest 
service. By precept and example and object lesson He 
impressed on them this law : '' Whosoever would be 
first among you shall be your bondservant." He alone 
is Lord and Master. All His disciples are brethren. 
This is the fundamental principle of Christian fellow- 
ship in Congregational churches. 

On one other occasion He mentioned the church. 
It was in connection with one of His solemn lessons to 
His disciples, warning them not to aspire to hold 
authority where all are brethren. i\fter He had 
answered their question, '' Who then is greatest in the 
kingdom of Heaven ? " by placing a little child before 
them, and earnestly assuring them that unless they 
turned away from their ambition for higher places than 
others and became like that little child, they should not 
enter into Ine kingdom at all, He talked to them of 
His love for weak disciples who were going astray. 
He told them that if one should be wronged by another, 
he ought to go to his erring brother and show him his 



V 



36 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

fault ; that if that step failed, he should go with one or 
two others and try again ; that if the brother still re- 
fused to listen to them, they should tell it to the church 
— which is the congregation of believers — and that if 
he should refuse to hear the church they should with- 
draw fellowship from him. This action, ?Ie declared, 
would be confirmed in heaven. He concluded by inti- 
mating what a church is in these words: '' For where 
two or three are gathered together in my name there 
am I in the midst of them." Thus He stated the fun- 
damental principle of the government of a church of 
Christ, and Congregationalists accept and follow it. 

When Christ had so taught His disciples, had suf- 
fered and died on the cross, and had risen from the 
dead, He assured them that all power was given to 
Him in heaven and on earth ; and on that ground He 
commanded them to make disciples of all the nations, 
to baptize them into the one name of the Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit, and to teach them all they had learned 
from Him. Then, having promised to be always with 
them, He disappeared from their sight. 

The first important step taken afterward by the 
disciples, about one hundred and twenty in all, was to 
choose one to be an apostle in place of Judas. This 
was done by the whole congregation, as Congregation- 
alists now manage the business of the church. Peter 
made the motion, which was agreed to, that the vacancy 
should be filled. The disciples chose two of their 
members as candidates. Then, having united in 
prayer, they drew lots between the two ; and the lot 
falling on Matthias, he was counted with the other 
apostles, thus completing the number of twelve. If we 
had not the Revised Version of the New Testament, it 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 37 

would be necessary to explain here that Peter's quota- 
tion from the 109th Psalm, " His bishopric let another 
take," does not refer to an episcopal office. The cor- 
rect rendering, " His office let another take " \riiargin, 
overseership] is given in the Revised Version which, in 
a number of instances, corrects the mistakes into which 
the translators of the King James version naturally 
fell, of representing the organization of the apostolic 
churches as conformed to the Episcopal Church of 
which these translators were officers. 

The disciples waited in Jerusalem for some token 
from their Master to show them how and where He 
would have them begin His work. In about ten days 
the sign came. The first Christian church was formed 
in that city on the clay of Pentecost, about seven weeks 
after the crucifixion. It was the model according to 
which all Congregational churches are formed. The 
word church, or ecclesia, means a given assembly or 
congregation of believers. 

The first sign of the beginning of a new church was 
a sound like a rushing mighty wind in the unstirred air 
of the room where the disciples were sitting. The 
next was a vision of flaming tongues like halos of light. 
These were not given to the apostles alone, but 
appeared on every one of the disciples. Then came 
an outburst of praises to God in many languages, 
from the entire assembly. As the harmony of diverse 
tongues swelled into a mighty chorus, the crowd 
gathered, amazed to see a company of Galileans so 
uttering praises to God that strangers from every land 
heard in their own tongues the mighty works of God. 

Then the twelve apostles stood up together, and 
Peter preached to the multitude. He wore no priest's' 



38 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

robes. He needed no altar or candles. The altar to 
which he pointed was the cross, which seven weeks 
before had stood not far from that very place, and the 
flaming tongue on his head was beyond comparison 
with any earthly illumination. He needed no choir. 
Every disciple sang, and everybody in the audience 
heard the music in his own language wherein he was 
born. It was music for the masses. 

His sermon was simple. He began by answering the 
question which absorbed the thought of the audience — 
" What meaneth this ?" Some had already undertaken 
to answer it by saying '* They are filled with new wine." 
He met that sneer at the outset by pointing back to 
the ancient prophets, selecting a magnificent text from 
Joel. This, he said, to which honest inquirers can give 
no name, and which mockers call intoxication, is the 
power of the Holy Spirit foretold by prophets. This, 
which you see in these flaming tongues and hear in 
these many languages declaring the mighty works of 
God — this is poured forth by Jesus of Nazareth, who 
wrought wonders among you by the power of God, as 
you well know, whom you crucified. ** This Jesus did 
God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses." This 
power of the Holy Spirit Jesus received from God His 
Father, and is now shedding forth upon us, said the 
apostle. That was the doctrine. '' Repent ye and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive 
the gift of the Holy Spirit." That was the application. 

There we first find the concrete, visible Christian 
church. About three thousand were added to the one 
hundred and twenty original members that very day. 
There was no confirmation of them by a bishop. No 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 39 

presbytery met to decide on their claims to form a 
church. No presiding elder appointed their minister. 
The only condition of membership was that each should 
be a living stone in the new structure. The only evi- 
dences of it which were required were repentance from 
sin, supreme loyalty to Jesus Christ, the gift of the 
Holy Spirit and the fellowship of believers. 

The first church was a Congregational church, a 
spiritual democracy with Christian character for its 
basis — character begun and nurtured by union with 
Jesus Christ, character royal in itself and owning no 
superior on earth, having one Master and all being 
brethren. The exercises of the new church were regu- 
lar attendance on the apostles' teaching, regular prayer 
meetings, regular observance of the Lord's Supper and 
generous contributions for the needs of the church and 
its poor. 

Four or five years later the new church at Jerusa- 
lem had grown to be so large that the twelve apostles 
found themselves unable to look after the poor. It 
included not only natives of Jerusalem, but many 
foreign Jews living there. These different classes 
naturally had jealous feelings toward each other, and 
the foreigners began to complain that their widows did 
not get their share In the daily distribution of alms. 
To settle this difficulty the apostles called the whole 
church together, and declaring that they could not 
turn from their business of preaching and teaching the 
word of God to look after temporal affairs, asked that 
the brethren would elect seven men from among them 
to take care of the poor. All were pleased with this 
suggestion and chose seven devout men, who, though 
Jews, appear to have been themselves foreigners, whom 



40 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the disciples brought forward in the meeting to the 
twelve apostles. The apostles led the church in 
prayer and then laid their hands on the seven and set 
them apart for the ''ministration," or diakonia as it is 
called in the Greek. Thus, by the action and choice of 
all the members, in the usual Congregational way, the 
order of deacons was instituted, one of the two perma- 
nent orders in the Congregational churches. 

These seven deacons quickly began to enlarge their 
work beyond that for which they were elected, with the 
approval of all. Some of them, especially Stephen and 
Philip, soon came to surpass the apostles as preachers. 
Stephen wrought great wonders and signs among the 
people. He met in their synagogues the Jews of sev- 
eral foreign provinces and vanquished them in debate, 
proving that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the 
Scriptures. Finally, as they could not overcome him 
by argument, they took the uncongregational way of 
silencinor him which the church under the control of a 
hierarchy has employed so often throughout its entire 
history. They killed him. Less than two years after 
his election as deacon he became a martyr by being 
stoned to death. 

Stephen's death, and the persecutions which followed, 
led by Saul, a foreign Jew from Cilicia, did great serv- 
ice to the young church, for it drove the disciples out 
of Jerusalem into the other cities and villages of Judea 
and into Samaria. Philip preached with great success 
in the city of Samaria, and the news of the wonderful 
revival there came to the apostles, who had remained 
in Jerusalem. They sent Peter and John to help 
Philip, and there again the Holy Spirit came upon all 
the believers, who had been baptized already, not by 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 41 

the apostles but by Deacon Philip or by laymen who 
labored with him. Thus another church was organized, 
again Congregational, the precursor of many churches 
in the Samaritan villages. 

About three years later Peter, by direction of the 
Holy Spirit, preached the gospel to a large audience in 
the house of a Roman officer at Joppa, and his preach- 
ing was accompanied by the same signs which had 
signalized the formation of the first church in Jerusalem. 
Unable to resist these evidences of divine approval, he 
gave instructions to those with him, probably to the 
six brethren who came down from Cesarea, to baptize 
these Gentile believers, who had never been circum- 
cised, in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus another 
church was formed in the house of Cornelius, this time 
as heretofore, Congregational, but of persons hitherto 
supposed to be outside of and beyond the favor of God. 

This was a very serious step for Peter to take, and 
it aroused surprise and indignation in the church at 
Jerusalem. When he returned to the brethren, they 
charged him with violating important principles of their 
faith. He was not arraigned before a company of 
bishops nor before the apostles only, but the apostles 
and brethren together challenged him to explain his 
conduct to the whole church of which he was a member. 
He did this so convincingly that they all agreed that 
he had done right, and they unanimously adopted 
this new article of faith, which eventually changed the 
whole spirit and manner of their work : '/ To the Gen- 
tiles also hath God granted repentance unto life." 
Thus by a method now everywhere recognized as Con- 
gregational, the churches grew in their knowledge of 
Christian doctrine. 



42 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Many of the disciples, driven from Jerusalem by the 
persecution, went beyond the bounds of Palestine, 
probably in search of work and of homes where they 
could live in peace. But wherever they went, they told 
to their fellow Jews the story of Jesus, His resurrection 
and His promise to establish among men the Kingdom 
of God. Some of these new disciples were foreigners 
by birth, some having been born in the island of Cy- 
prus, and others in Cyrene, a city of Northern Africa. 
Both places were centers of Greek life. When, there- 
fore, these men came to Antioch, which had been the 
capital of the Greek kings of Syria before it was con- 
quered by the Romans, they told the story of Jesus to 
the Greeks there as well as to Jews. Nicolas, one of 
the seven deacons who had been appointed at Jerusa- 
lem, belonged in Antioch, and he was probably one of 
those who preached there. Great interest was awak- 
ened, and a new church was formed, containing many 
Gentiles. It was now about ten years since the first 
church began at Jerusalem. Antioch was about three 
hundred miles north of that city, a long journey at that 
time, but news of this first Gentile church came to 
Jerusalem, and the church there sent one of Its mem- 
bers, Joseph Barnabas, a landowner and a liberal giver, 
to see what was going on at Antioch. After preaching 
there a while with large success in building up the 
church, he determined to seek a helper. He remem- 
bered that that Saul who had been prominent as a 
persecutor when Deacon Stephen was stoned had since 
been converted to Christ, and had called on him 
four or hvG years before in Jerusalem. He knew that 
Saul's home was in Tarsus, and there he found 
him. They returned together to Antioch. There they 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 43 

labored, two evangelists, neither of them ordained by 
any church, only one of them with any credentials from 
a church, for a whole year. The church at Antioch 
grew fast. Before that, all the disciples having been 
Jews had been known as followers of the Way, to dis- 
tinguish them from other Jews. But now, as many 
were Gentiles, they all began to be called in Antioch 
by a new name, Christians. There were no different 
denominations as yet, for each church managed its own 
affairs and chose its own officers, as Congregational 
churches now do. 

The Antioch Christians soon began to be interested 
in those outside of their own membership. They 
heard of much suffering among the Christians in 
Judea, and though these persons were strangers to 
them, they decided of their own motion to send to 
them a generous sum of money. This they did, for- 
warding it by Barnabas and Saul. These brethren, 
when they returned from Jerusalem, brought with them 
John Mark. 

Already five persons had become recognized in the 
church at Antioch as prophets and teachers ; not, so 
far as we can learn, by any formal ordination, but 
because of their gifts and labors. Their names were 
Joseph Barnabas, Symeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, 
Manaen, foster brother of the tetrarch Herod, and 
Saul. These brethren were drawn together in their 
work and prayers, and became greatly interested in 
carrying the gospel to those who had not yet heard of 
it, so fulfilling the last command of Jesus. After a time 
they so stirred up the members of the church in its zeal 
for missions that, led by the Holy Spirit, they chose 
Barnabas and Saul to oo as missionaries. Then for 



44 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the first time, though they had been preaching for 
some years, these two disciples were formally set apart 
by the laying on of hands, not by the apostles, but by 
the brethren of that church, and they went forth on 
their journey, taking John Mark with them, no doubt 
provided with necessary funds by the church. This 
was the beginning of foreign missions, a movement 
started by a church self-formed, as Congregational 
churches now are, and largely made up of converted 
heathen. The church ordained and supported its own 
missionaries without even consultation with other 
churches, and they went forth to preach where the 
Spirit should lead them. 

They had a wonderful experience in Asia Minor, 
going from place to place, preaching the gospel and 
gathering believers into churches. In each church, 
elders, sometimes called pastors, were chosen by vote, 
and installed with prayer and fasting, and after a year 
or more of these labors, Paul and Barnabas came back 
to Antioch, where they told to the church which had 
sent them out the story of their mission, and how God 
had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. 

Here they remained for a year or more, when some 
of the Jewish Christians from Judea came to Antioch 
and began to preach that it was necessary for the 
Gentiles to become Jews, else they could not be 
Christians, and that the labors of Paul and Barnabas 
would count for nothing because they had not circum- 
cised the converts from heathendom and taught them 
to obey the law of Moses. Naturally the /missionaries 
were indignant at this teaching and vigorously fought 
it, till the dissension became so great that it threatened 
to divide the church. Then they took the Congrega- 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 45 

tional way of settling the difficulty. The church chose 
several delegates, among whom were Paul and Barna- 
bas, and sent them up to Jerusalem to inquire of the 
apostles, and the elders, sometimes called pastors, con- 
cerning this matter. They did not contemplate any 
authority in the mother church. They disputed the 
testimony of its members who had come among them. 
They evidently acknowledged no officer as having 
authority over them, but they sought counsel, just as 
Congregational churches now do. A council was 
called : the apostles and pastors came together and 
the subject was thoroughly discussed. Finally the 
whole church agreed to sustain Paul and Barnabas in 
the position they had taken. The apostles did not 
go down to Antioch to instruct that church what to 
believe, but the whole church elected two of the 
brethren and sent them with Paul and Barnabas to tell 
the brethren at Antioch that according to their judg- 
ment, guided by the Holy Spirit, it was not necessary 
for heathen converts to become Jews. They only 
urged that all Christians should abstain from things 
offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and 
from fornication. 

The last of these requirements was one of common 
morality. The advice as to the others was not accepted 
as law. When the question concerning things offered 
to idols came up a few years later in the churches at 
Corinth and Rome, and was referred to Paul, he did 
not quote the decision of the Jerusalem Council as 
authority, but taught them to live according to the law 
of Christ, to love their neighbors as themselves, and to 
treat things offered to idols as the law of Christ, under 
the circumstances in which they were placed, would die- 



46 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

tate. Thus the Congregational principle of fellowship 
between the churches was recognized and acted on. 
Each church governed itself, but they united in counsel 
concerning matters of common interest, and they had 
sufficient evidence that the Holy Spirit guided their 
deliberations. 

Paul and Barnabas, with the delegates from Jerusa- 
lem, returned to Antioch, where they all assured the 
brethren of the approval of the Christians in Judea, 
and confirmed them in their faith that simply by trust- 
ing and following Jesus Christ, without keeping the law 
of Moses, they would be saved. Peter, indeed, came 
down to Antioch, and being afraid of the Jews, went 
over to the Jewish party and acted inconsistently with 
the result of the council at Jerusalem, which he had 
himself advocated. He had so much influence that 
he carried with him the Jewish Christians, and even 
Barnabas also. A division in the church again seemed 
imminent, and if it had occurred would have been dis- 
astrous, making two opposing sects following the same 
Master, one of Jews and the other of Gentiles. But 
Paul prevented the division, as he afterward wrote to 
the Galatians, not by referring to the action at Jerusa- 
lem as authoritative, but by proving Peter to be incon- 
sistent with his own practice, and by urging upon both 
parties the fundamental truth of the gospel, that 
whether Jews or Gentiles they were saved through 
faith In Jesus Christ and through Him alone. Two 
things are also made plain here : first, that Peter was 
wTong in his judgment, and second, that neither Paul 
nor the other brethren had any idea that Peter was the 
head of the Church. In no w^ay could the sufficiency 
of the local church have been more completely shown. 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 47 

Some time after this Paul, with Silas, began that 
wonderful mission of some two years in Europe, where 
he planted churches in Philippi, Berea, Thessalonica, 
Corinth and other cities, and where were worked out 
many of the principles of church government described 
in his letters to them. In September of the year 53 
Paul returned to Antioch, where he remained for 
some months. Early in the year 54 he set out on his 
third missionary journey, which continued for more 
than four years. During this time he visited the 
churches in Asia Minor and in Greece, planting new 
ones, and writing his letters to the Corinthians, Ro- 
mans and Galatians. This is the last record in the 
book of the Acts concerning the organization of 
churches, though Paul labored for two years with the 
church at Rome while he was imprisoned there, and 
wrote letters to churches and individuals which are 
now a part of the New Testament scriptures. 

These letters to the churches are addressed to the 
brethren, never to the officials by themselves, and 
wherever outward organizations are referred to, the 
plural form is used. We find no reference to Presbyte- 
rian organization bringing collections of churches into 
one authoritative body. These letters give direction 
to the churches to govern themselves in the Congrega- 
tional way. The church is compared to a human body 
with different members, but all to receive equal honor. 
The brethren are told that they have in their own hands 
the power of discipline, '*to admonish one another." 
They are exhorted in lowliness of mind to let each 
account others above himself. They are assured that 
when a man seeks to exalt himself, ''he deceives him- 
self with vain imaginations." In matters of discipline, 



48 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

it is the brethren, the whole membership, who take 
action. Paul instructs the brethren at Thessalonica to 
withdraw themselves from disorderly persons. He tells 
the Corinthian brethren that when they voted in public 
assembly to discipline an offending member, they 
reflected his judgment also ; and in a later letter he 
tells them that their sentence, voted by the majority, 
was a sufficient punishment. This was Congregational 
church government. 

In Paul's letters, as in the other epistles, only two 
orders of church officers are mentioned, pastors and 
deacons. The first class are called bishops, elders, 
pastors, or teachers, the word bishop meaning simply 
overseer. These names are not applied to distinctions 
in office, but have reference to varieties in the kind of 
work performed by the same man. These officers were 
sometimes settled with local churches, and sometimes 
labored at large, but never had any diocese of churches 
under their control or formed part of a ruling body. 
When elders were elected more than one was chosen 
in a eiven local church. Paul told the elders of the 
church at Ephesus that the Holy Spirit had made them 
bishops of that flock. They were ministers in that 
local church. 

The apostles themselves exercised the authority of 
those who had learned the truth from Christ's own lips 
and received their commission direct from Him to 
baptize and teach the nations. They were originally 
twelve, and after Christ left them to complete His work, 
they only filled the one vacancy caused by the apostasy 
of Judas. There is no evidence that when any other 
apostle died a successor was appointed. It was their 
business to be witnesses of Christ's resurrection, Paul 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM. 49 

claimed apostleship not by election of the brethren but 
because he had seen the Lord. When the apostles 
died their office ceased. Apostleship in any other con- 
nection simply describes a sending for service and has 
no connection with the office. The apostles directed 
the infant churches of their planting much as home 
missionary superintendents among Congregationalists 
now oversee the affairs of churches dependent for early 
nurture on the home missionary organizations which 
these superintendents represent. They taught the 
churclves self-government and the principles and 
methods of administration which prevail in Congre- 
gational churches. 

This was the condition of the churches of Christ at 
the close of the apostolic history in the New Testa- 
ment. The history of the beginning of organized 
Christianity is simple, straightforward and natural. 
The apostles and other disciples proclaimed Jesus of 
Nazareth as the Messiah foretold by the prophets. 
They told how he went about doing good, working 
miracles and declaring himself to be the manifestation 
of God the Father. They repeated what He had 
taught to them. They told of His death on the cross, 
His resurrection from the dead, His promise of eternal 
life to His followers and of the Holy Spirit to enter 
and dwell in them. They declared that no man could 
bear witness to Jesus as his Master except in the Holy 
Spirit ; and they invited everyone to repent of his sins 
and believe on Jesus as the Messiah and his Lord, 
promising to all who would accept their invitation the 
gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who became believers 
associated themselves together by divine guidance, 
drawn by a common love and service to one Lord ; 



50 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and each company of believers became a true church 
of Christ, complete in itself. These believers chose 
the most gifted among them to instruct them and to 
manage as their servants the affairs of the communi- 
ties thus formed. Those so chosen administered bap- 
tism to new members and their households, and par- 
took together with them of the Lord's Supper. They 
held meetings for worship, mutual encouragement and 
instruction, and the day fixed on from the beginning 
as most suited for these exercises was that day, the 
first of the week, on which their Lord had risen from 
the dead, which they called the Lord's Day. 

In this way, then, churches sprang up. No careful 
outline for their organization was revealed by Christ, 
or conceived by His apostles. They came into being 
as Christians found themselves drawn to one another 
by common love and service to one Lord, and as they 
were led by the Holy Spirit to feel that in such fellow- 
ship they could best express their inward union and 
best fulfill the purpose for which they represented their 
Lord in the world. 

The result of this divine process of organization was 
Congregationalism, a church government which is a 
theocratic democracy. Its motto is '' One is your Mas- 
ter, even the Christ ; and all ye are brethren." 

With wonderful rapidity in the first centuries of the 
Christian era these churches multiplied, spreading from 
province to province and country to country till the 
gospel of Christ became known in every part of the 
great Roman Empire, which included the whole known 
world. 



CHAPTER II. 

APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED IN LATER 

TIMES. 

IT is not within the province of this history to trace 
the process by which local churches of the first cen- 
tury gradually surrendered their independence and 
came under the control of powerful leaders, till at last 
the episcopal idea of church government became fully 
developed. One bishop, as father or pope of all, 
claimed and received supreme authority as the vice- 
gerent of Christ on earth, having under him bishops 
with subordinate officers in their dioceses, making the 
church a mighty organization contending with and 
often absolutely controlling human governments, exer- 
cising, with the infliction of pains and penalties, juris- 
diction over the consciences of Christians throughout 
the world. 

From the time when Christianity became the dom- 
inant religion of the Roman Empire by the conversion 
of Constantine, a. d. 312, and even before that date, 
there were Christians who resisted unto death the 
attempts of human authority to take the place of Christ 
over their consciences. Century after century such 
Christians united in organizations for the avowed pur- 
pose either of purifying the existing church or of 
planting new and pure churches of Christ in the world. 
One name, though in different languages, came to be 
applied to these successive sects, which in English is 

51 



52 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the word Puritan, signifying that they sought to make 
the body of Christ on earth pure from moral defilement, 
and that they believed themselves called to resist cen- 
tralized authority, to point out and denounce the sins 
of the church, and to withdraw from those who con- 
tinued in these sins. In the third century were the 
Novatians, who separated from the church at Rome 
and assumed the name Cathari, which means the pure. 
In the fourth century were the Donatists in Northern 
Africa. In the seventh century arose the Paulicians, 
who continued in Asia Minor and in Southern Europe, 
sometimes in large numbers, for more than four hun- 
dred years. The Waldenses and Albigenses were the 
natural successors of the Paulicians, and their descend- 
ants remain to this day. The most that we know of 
the religious movements which these names represent 
we have to learn from their enemies, for the Catholic 
Church, as it gained power and became Roman and 
fostered the ambitions of its popes and other leaders, 
pursued relentlessly those who criticised it and who 
renounced its authority. Their writings were burned, 
they were themselves cast into prison, tortured and put 
to death. Sometimes they were killed by thousands, 
while survivors were driven into wildernesses and 
mountain fastnesses with the purpose to exterminate 
them. The student of history finds no records of con- 
flicts so bitter, of carnage so awful, as those waged in 
the name of relioion. 

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 drove many 
scholars westward from that city to find homes in Italy, 
the German States and France. The revival of learn- 
ing which followed, and which was in those countries 
wonderfully stimulated by the invention of printing, 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 53 

was accompanied by a new Interest In the study of the 
Bible and a reHgious quickening which led to the 
Reformation. The leaders of that movement threw 
off the yoke of Rome and turned to the Holy 
Scriptures as the one supreme and sufficient source of 
authority In religion. Their interest, however, cen- 
tered in the Word of God as revealing doctrine and 
life, and did not greatly extend to its teachings of 
church government. They allied themselves, and the 
churches they formed, with the civil governments under 
which they lived. 

In England, in 1380, one hundred and forty years 
before Martin Luther nailed his theses on the church 
door in Wittenberg, Wycliffe proclaimed that the Bible 
was an all-sufficient guide, not only in religious faith 
and duty, but in all matters of ecclesiastical order also. 
He insisted on the necessity of personal piety to true 
church membership, rejected altogether episcopal con- 
firmation with the authority of the pope and papal 
officers, declared that Christ is the only head of the 
church, and that the office of the minister is simply to 
preach the gospel. He taught that the New Testa- 
ment is the sufficient guide in church government. 

For adopting these Congregational principles and 
other teachings of that great reformer of the fourteenth 
century, a long roll of martyrs in England for two 
hundred years suffered at the hands of the church, 
endured loss of property and social standing, imprison- 
ment, indignities of many kinds, torture and death on 
the gallows or at the stake. The history of the 
Lollards, who embraced the doctrines of Wycliffe, 
though the records of them are scanty, Is one of the 
most Interesting chapters in the history of the Chris- 



54 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

tian church. It is impossible to read the simple story 
of so many brave men and women suffering the loss of 
all things and freely giving up life itself rather than 
deny their faith, without the conviction that the re- 
ligious liberty which we enjoy has been bought at 
a great price, and that the roots of our churches reach 
down deep and far into the life-blood of generations 
of noble servants of Christ of whom the world was not 
worthy. 

When England under Henry VIII., in 1534, threw 
off the yoke of Rome, she had no idea of permitting 
men to follow the dictates of their consciences in wor- 
shiping God. The church was still essentially united 
with the state to control all its subjects, though the 
sovereign took the place of the pope. 

The king secured the consent of Parliament to call 
himself, under Christ, the supreme head of the church, 
and the clergy in convocation had to acknowledge his 
supremacy. He confiscated the property of the mon- 
asteries, but not for the good of the people. He 
divided the wealth he took among his nobles and other 
friends. Following him, Edward VI. gave encourage- 
ment to hope for prosperity to Protestant churches. 
But his short reign was followed by the five years' blot 
of Mary's rule, which was one continuous blood-stain 
on England's history. When Elizabeth came to the 
throne she made permanent the reformation of the 
church, as it was called, by assuming for herself and 
her lords the appointment of the clergy to their livings, 
and by claiming, as head of the church, the unlimited 
superintendence of the religion of the people. Dr. 
Leonard Bacon has well characterized her as a petti- 
coated pope. 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 55 

But she had two opposing classes in the one national 
church to hold in outward unity besides the larger 
class who accepted without question the new order. 
The first of these, naturally conservative, looked with 
regret on the changes which desolated the monasteries 
and separated the church from the great papal body. 
The other class were Lollards and those who sympa- 
thized with them, the most of whom, however, sought, 
not to separate themselves from the national church, 
but to reform it more thoroughly : to purify its clergy, 
its membership, its forms of worship, and its ordi- 
nances. These came to be known as Puritans. This 
was the origin of English Puritanism. They wanted 
the authority of the state to be exercised in reforming 
the church. 

Elizabeth sought to hold in control these opposing 
elements by the enforcement of two famous acts which 
Parliament passed in the beginning of her reign. The 
first was the Act of Supremacy, which separated the 
Church of England from the papal see. This act em- 
powered the Queen to establish a High Commission, or 
supreme ecclesiastical court, consisting of forty-four 
persons appointed by herself. To this court those 
accused of crimes against the church might appeal, but 
its decision was final, and it was practically that of the 
Queen herself. Every person in England was amenable 
to the ecclesiastical courts. The church, therefore, with 
the sovereign at the head, held as absolute authority 
over all the people in all spiritual matters as did the 
state in temporal matters. There was, however, a limit 
to the power of the ecclesiastical courts in imposing 
punishme.its. They could not inflict the death penalty. 
That must be pronounced by a secular court. 



56 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

The second act was known as the Act of Uniformity, 
which compelled the use of the Book of Common 
Prayer, and of the ritual contained in it, by every min- 
ister and in every religious assembly. On one side 
were royal power and prestige, supported by the tradi- 
tions of centuries in favor of the established church, 
with its prescribed orders of bishops, priests and other 
clergy, its fixed forms of worship, and its sacraments 
of baptism, confirmation, the Lord's Supper, marriage, 
death and burial, encompassing every person in the 
realm ; on the other side the obstinate consciences of 
men and women stimulated by the sense of injustice, 
by heavy fines, imprisonments and degrading punish- 
ments, and by the memory of recent burnings and * 
hangings of many godly men and women. It was to 
be expected that such persons would question the divine 
authority of a church which sought to impose laws and 
forms which their consciences repudiated, and would 
search the Word of God to see if it contained any war- 
rant for such compulsion. Some of those who resisted 
were men of great learning and eloquence. Foremost 
among them was Thomas Cartwright, a professor in 
the University of Cambridge, who, as early as 1570, 
began in his lectures to point out the differences be- 
tween the government of the Church of England and 
the principles and practices of the churches of the New 
Testament. From that university came afterward 
most of the leaders in the first English Congregational 
churches. Still, Cartwright held that the nation was 
the church, which needed to be reconstructed. He 
and his followers carried on their warfare within the 
church, and In time became advocates of Presbyteri- 
anlsm, like that of the established Church o^ Scotland. 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 5/ 

Not all the reformers,, however, were satisfied to 
stop there. In 1567, the tenth year of Elizabeth's 
reign, a small congregation used to meet in London, 
calling itself " The Privye Church," whose members 
declared themselves separated from the Church of 
England, which they described as the " secret and dis- 
guised Antichrist." They professed to worship God 
" according to His blessed and glorious Word," ''abol- 
ishing and abhorring all inventions and traditions of 
men." They were severely persecuted. They charged 
this " Antichrist " with having killed their minister, 
Richard Fitz, and their deacon, Thomas Rowland, and 
man)/ others ; and they cried to God to redress their 
wrongs. Very little is known of them and they prob- 
ably were soon crushed out of existence. But the 
religious liberty for which they contended could not be 
destroyed by persecution. 

The apostolic idea of churches founded by the 
voluntary union of believers, each church controlling 
its own affairs, yet united with others in bonds of fel- 
lowship, was revolutionary, but the study of the New 
Testament was sure to suggest it. Indeed, there is evi- 
dence that this apostolic Congregationalism was main- 
tained in England from the time of Wycliffe onward, 
but it began to attract attention as a definite movement 
in church history about 1581. Six years before that, at 
Bury St. Edmunds, in the county of Suffolk, several 
clergymen of the established church came under sus- 
picion for refusing to conform to its rules. Some, of 
whom two bore the names of Coppin and Thacker, 
were imprisoned. 

When these two had been in prison some six years, 
there appeared in that region as their champion and 



58 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

defender Robert Browne, who has been called with 
good reason the father of modern Congregationalism. 
He was a student at Cambridge University in 1570, 
when Cartwright was lecturing there, and probably 
graduated from Corpus Christi College. He was a 
clergyman of the established church, and had been for 
a time chaplain to the Duchess of Suffolk. Gather- 
ing the common people into private houses or wher- 
ever they could safely meet, he fearlessly denounced 
the Bishop of Norwich for his persecution of these 
ministers, declared that the Church of England was 
not the true church, and proclaimed the right of 
everyone to worship God as his own conscience should 
dictate. He was a popular preacher, of an eager, 
imperious disposition and strong convictions. He 
soon found himself in prison for his temerity, but 
after a time was released through the efforts of his 
relative. Lord Burghley. Through these experiences, 
the study of the Scriptures and the discipline of 
church courts, his system of church government 
rapidly matured in his mind. When again out of 
prison, he soon renewed his .preaching, and gathered 
an Independent or Separatist Church at Norwich, 
perhaps also bringing about the formation of other 
such churches. Before many months it became evi- 
dent that he and his follow^ers would lose liberty and 
perhaps life if they remained in England. The little 
church, therefore, in 1581 went voluntarily into exile in 
Middleburgh, Zealand. There he published a book 
explaining the system of church government which he 
advocated. His statements are in substance the prin- 
ciples of Congregationalism, and they evidently grew 
out of earnest thought on the polity of the New Testa- 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 59 

ment churches set in sharp contrast to the EngHsh 
hierarchy. 

The Church of England wielded the authority of the 
state, and held that every child in England must be 
baptized into it, and that every person in England be- 
longed in it and was subject to its laws. Browne held 
that the true church was composed only of regenerate 
persons, that there was no warrant to exercise civil 
authority over its spiritual affairs, and that church and 
state are separate realms. He did not believe that the 
Church of England, including as it did those who did 
not follow Christ or have His Spirit, could be reformed, 
but he regarded it as essentially wrong in Its constitu- 
tion and claims : therefore he broke away from it. 

The Church of England maintained that it was one 
organization, exclusively empowered of God to estab- 
lish forms and methods of worship and to enforce its 
discipline by the power of the state ; that the sovereign 
of England was supreme head of the church, and that 
its officers of different ranks, appointed by him, had, 
under him, the power of God. Browne held that the 
New Testament furnished the model for the oreani- 
zation of churches ; that they are to be formed by be- 
lievers in Christ uniting together, of their own free will, 
in a covenant to obey Him ; that they had, under 
Christ, the sole power to receive, to dismiss, and, if need 
be, to discipline and to expel members ; that the offi- 
cers of such churches are to be chosen by the members, 
these officers being pastors, sometimes called elders, 
and also deacons, relievers and widows, ''having their 
several charge in one church only.'' He affirmed that 
these officers had no authority to stand between Christ 
and the believer, but that " every one of the church is 



6o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

made a king, a priest and a prophet under Christ, to 
uphold and further the kingdom of God." He held 
that every member of the church had an immediate 
relation to Christ its Head. 

But while he maintained the independence of the 
local church, he recognized the duties of local churches 
to each other, exercised through *' the meetings of sun- 
dry churches ; which are when the weaker churches seek 
the help of the stronger for deciding or redressing of 
matters, or else the stronger look to them for redress." 

These principles, which Browne formulated, pub- 
lished, and put in practice in the church which he organ- 
ized, are the principles of Congregationalism which 
were illustrated In the apostolic churches. The suffi- 
ciency of the local church, composed of believers in 
Christ covenanted together to obey Him, having equal 
rights and privileges under their one head, and the 
unity of the churches through mutual fellowship and 
common interests— this is Congregationalism. These 
principles now distinguish Congregational churches 
throughout the world. 

The fact is not to be overlooked, also, that Browne 
considered his church polity, which was essentially 
democratic — though he did not so intend it — as ap- 
plicable also to the state. Individuals formed the 
church by covenanting together and chose their own 
leaders by majority vote. His idea of the state was 
also a compact of individuals under rulers who held 
office by the consent of the governed. The system 
of our republican government was enfolded In the 
Idea of Congregational churches as explained in his 
book, the substance of whose long title was " The 
Life and Manners of All True Christians." 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 6 1 

Another book which Browne sent out from Zea- 
land to be distributed in England was entitled ** Of 
Reformation without Tarrying for Any." It was a 
challenge of Separatists to Puritans who sought the 
reformation of the church through the civil author- 
ities and would wait for these to act. It was a 
declaration of the necessity of withdrawing from the 
Established Church and forming separate and self- 
governing churches after the New Testament pattern. 
John Coppin, still imprisoned, with Elias Thacker, under 
the authority of the High Commission and the Bishop 
of Norwich, were charged with circulating these books. 
Both were turned over to the secular power, tried on 
a charge of sedition and hanged. Several copies of 
Browne's books were burned at the executions. The 
old charge against Jesus Christ was renewed against 
these martyrs. Congregationalism in England under 
Elizabeth Tudor was condemned as sedition. 

It is not necessary to follow Browne's later history in 
detail ; nor is it pleasant to do so. The church which 
he had established at Middleburgh soon fell into diffi- 
culties and was broken up, probably through attempts 
to apply discipline for offenses which, if committed, 
were not properly matters for church investigation. 
Browne came back to England, was subsequently 
excommunicated from the Established Church but 
received back again, and through the influence of his 
relative, Lord Burghley, was appointed to the living of 
Achurch cum Thorpe, a parish of eighteen families 
in Northamptonshire, where he remained nearly forty 
years, till he died in 1630. There seems to be some 
reason for believing that his mind became unbalanced 
by his hard experiences, and that this ought to miti- 



62 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

gate the. censure passed upon him for abandoning the 
battle in behalf of the principles which represented in 
England the revival of apostolic Congregationalism. 
Those principles, at any rate, are not less true. Scrip- 
tural, and permanent because he who first clearly 
declared them in modern times failed to continue 
defending them till his death. 

In 1586 John Greenwood lay in the Clink prison, 
London, because he believed that a company of be- 
lievers in Christ had the right to covenant together 
to worship God, and thus to form a Christian church. 
He was about thirty years old, a graduate of Christ's 
College, Cambridge, and had been a clergyman of the 
Church of England. There his friend Henry Barrowe 
called on him on the Lord's Day, November 19, but 
the keeper having him inside would not let him out, and 
he became a fellow prisoner with Greenwood. Barrowe, 
too, was a Cambridge scholar, some years the senior of 
his friend. He was a lawyer and had been a courtier, 
living a somewhat dissolute life, as was common among 
those who dwelt at court. But one da}^ he heard a 
sermon by chance, which changed his whole life. He 
adopted the principles of the Separatists, and soon 
became a leader among them. His detention brought 
great satisfaction to Archbishop Whitgift, who ex- 
amined him that very Sunday and recommitted him 
without bail. He was twice afterward examined, once 
before the High Commissioners and once before com- 
missioners specially appointed by the Queen, but they 
got little satisfaction from him. He rejected liturgies 
and prescribed forms of prayer, and declared the " Book 
of Common Prayer" to be "idolatrous, superstitious 
and popish." He did not believe the Church of Eng- 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 



63 



land to be the true church, and he declared that its 
ecclesiastical courts and governors were unlawful and 
anti-Christian. He acknowledo^ed the Oueen to be 
ruler over the land and over the Church, but denied 
that she had any right to make laws for the Church 
other than those Christ had left in the world. 

After some six months in prison Barrowe and Green- 
wood were let out on bail, and for a time worshiped 
with their fellow believers wherever they could secretly 




ST. HELEN S, AUSTERFIELD, ENGLAND, WHERE WM. BRADFORD WORSHIPED, p. 75. 

meet, sometimes in private houses, sometimes in the 
fields and woods or other retired places. But they 
were soon caught in one of these meetings and again 
imprisoned with a number of others. This time they 
remained confined for more than five years. Here, 
under great inconvenience, suffering and difficulties, 
they wrote tracts and books defending the simple faith 
of the apostolic churches, and against the Church of 
England. Sheets of paper, one or two at a time, were 



64 CONGREGATIONALTSTS IN AMERICA. 

smuggled in to them by their friends, and taken away 
when filled. They were carried over to Holland, their 
contents printed and secretly brought back to Eng- 
land. Thus these persons kept spreading abroad their 
doctrines, and the number of believers in the primi- 
tive faith multiplied. One of these tracts, entitled 
''A True Description," was probably accepted by the 
brethren who worshiped together in London, and those 
in fellowship with them, as expressing their faith. It 
makes the Bible the standard, both in matters of doc- 
trine and of church government, but it mainly dwells 
on the polity and administration of the churches. It 
does not differ essentially from the statements of 
Browne, except that it makes ruling elders a kind of 
oligarchy in the local church, elected by the members, 
but having the entire administration practically under 
their control. 

But these two prisoners were not the only source 
from which pamphlets and books were scattered abroad 
in defense of Congregationalism. John Penry, another 
Cambridge scholar, a Welsh evangelist, finished his 
college studies, becoming Master of Arts in 1586, 
when he was twenty-five years of age. The large 
majority of the clergy in Wales never preached. They 
conducted public service with the Book of Common 
Prayer according to law, as was done in the Church 
of England. Many of them were not intellectually, 
and most of them were not spiritually qualified to 
preach the gospel. Penry's soul burned within him 
because of the spiritual destitution of his native land. 
The first year after his graduation he printed at Oxford 
a very earnest plea to the Queen and Parliament that 
some provision might be made for the preaching of the 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 65 

gospel in Wales, with the outline of a plan by which it 
might be done. The book was seized, its scheme was 
condemned by Archbishop Whitgift as intolerable and 
its author was imprisoned. But in consequence his 
friends provided him with a small printing press, which 
was kept busy, though it was hunted from place to 
place. 

During the year 1588, between February and 
August, appeared successively the seven famous Mar- 
tin Mar-prelate tracts, stinging satires against the 
church, its bishops and clergy. The officers of eccle- 
siastical courts vainly tried to suppress them. Detect- 
ives scoured the land to find their author. High 
dignitaries wrote ponderous replies to them. Then 
they tried to answer satire by satire, and made them- 
selves and their cause more ridiculous. What illus- 
trated caricature is in politics in these days, these tracts 
were in the warfare against the Church of England. 
The outcry of the bishops showed how hard they were 
hit, while the smallness of the shafts by which their 
unseen enemy wounded them belittled their dignity. 
These tracts came from Penry's secret press. He was 
accused of writing them, but probably without good 
reason. The secret of their authorship has never 
been discovered ; but Rev. Dr. Henry M. Dexter, pre- 
eminent in his knowledge of this period of Congrega- 
tional history, has conjectured that Henry Barrowe 
wrote them in prison, while Penry published them ; 
and Dr. Dexter supports his conjecture with reasons 
of considerable force. 

In February, 1589, Penry's study was searched and 
his papers seized by an officer of the ecclesiastical 
court. An order was made out for his arrest under a 



66 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

royal proclamation then issued against seditious and 
schismatical books. He fled with his wife and child 
to Scotland, where he printed another book to show 
the injustice of the charges made against reformers. 
While there, from being a Puritan he became a Sepa- 
ratist, and was drawn to the fellowship of those brethren 
in London who were maintaining a church by volun- 
tary covenant, after the manner of the New Testament 
churches. He came back to England and went to Lon- 
don in September, 1592, Meanwhile, a manuscript pre- 
pared by Barrowe and Greenwood had been sent over 
to Holland, and was being printed in Middleburgh, 
Zealand, where Robert Browne had planted his church 
some years before. In that town was Francis Johnson, 
another Cambridge scholar, and a clergyman. He was 
a Puritan, and for preaching Puritan doctrine in Cam- 
bridge had been expelled from the university and 
imprisoned. He had found employment as a preacher 
to the English merchants in Middleburgh. When he 
learned that a book was being printed there by two 
noted Separatists, as a loyal though Puritan member 
of the English Church he informed the English ambas- 
sador, and was employed to destroy the book. This 
he succeeded in doing, but kept two copies. One of 
these he read, and became convinced that the Separa- 
tists were right. He came over to England, made the 
acquaintance of Barrowe and Greenwood and cast in 
his fortunes with their company. The church had so 
far, we know not how long, existed simply as a com- 
pany of brethren, each of whom had entered into a 
sacred covenant ''that he would walk with the rest of 
the congregation, so long as they did walk in the way 
of the Lord, and as far as they might be warranted by 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 67 

the Word of God." But now, September, 1592, they 
completed their organization by electing Francis John- 
son as their pastor; John Greenwood, teacher; Daniel 
Studley and George Keniston, ruling elders ; Chris- 
topher Bowman and Nicholas Lee, deacons. This is 
generally regarded as the first Congregational Church 
of modern times of which we have any distinct trace, 
though there was undoubtedly an older organization at 
Norwich, and perhaps there were several companies of 
believers who were covenanted together as essentially 
Congregational churches. 

This church chose two ruling elders. This feature 
marks the difference between Barrowe's idea of church 
polity and Browne's. The latter advocated a purely 
democratic organization, the members administering 
the government of the church, all officers to be chosen 
and measures to be determined by the vote of the 
whole church. But Barrowe sought to modify this by 
a sort of compromise with Presbyterianism, whereby 
the church should elect ruling elders, to whom there- 
after should be entrusted the administration of affairs. 
Traces of this innovation on apostolic Congregation- 
alism, which has been aptly characterized as a Presby- 
terian heart within a Congregational body, are to be 
seen long after the denomination grew to be a power 
In New England, and not a little evil resulted from it. 

The completion of the organization of this church 
was followed by severe persecutions. Soon after 
Greenwood's election to the office of teacher, he was 
rearrested and Francis Johnson was imprisoned with 
him. Many others of the little company were incar- 
cerated, and memorials were addressed to her Maj- 
esty's Council praying for their relief, but in vain. 



68 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

One of these memorials, which mentions those in 
prison and their sufferings, thus sets forth their motive 
for withdrawing from the Church of England and 
organizing a church by themselves. '' We, by the Holy 
Scriptures, find God's absolute commandment that all 
which hear and believe the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ should forthwith thereupon forsake their evil 
walk, and from thenceforth walk in Christ's holy faith 
and order, together with His faithful servants, subject- 
ing themselves to the ministry, and those holy laws and 
ordinances which the Lord Jesus hath appointed, and 
whereby only He is present and reigneth in the church. 
Wherefore, both for the enjoying of that inestimable 
comfort of His jo^^ful presence and protection, and to 
show our obedience to God's holy commandment, we 
have, in His reverent fear and love, joined ourselves 
together in that Christian faith, order and communion 
prescribed in his Word, and [have] subjected our souls 
and bodies to those holy laws and ordinances which 
the Son of God hath instituted, and whereby He is 
present and ruleth His church here beneath; and [we] 
have chosen to ourselves such a ministry of pastor, 
teacher, elders, deacons, as Christ hath given to His 
church here on earth to the world's end." 

Up to this time the persecution of Barrowe and 
Greenwood and their brethren had been carried on 
solely by the ecclesiastical courts, and these memorials 
seem to have been addressed to the secular authorities 
in the hope of securing from them redress for griev- 
ances ; but the hope was in vain. The ruling powers, 
secular as as well ecclesiastical, were determined to 
establish the principle that all the English people 
must believe and worship according to the dictate of 



APOSTOLIC CONGREGATIONALISM REVIVED. 69 

their temporal sovereign. The same method which 
had been appHed to Coppin and Thacker ten years 
before was a^ain resorted to with Barrowe and Green- 
wood. They were indicted for circulating seditious 
books, which by Act of Parliament had been made a 
capital crime. Two days later they were found guilty 
and sentenced to be hung on the following day. Just 
before the hour for execution, after they had been led 
out of the dungeon to their death, as they supposed, 
they were reprieved. A week later, when they had 
refused to recant, they were again led forth to die, and 
ropes were placed about their necks. Again at the 
last moment, a reprieve came. They waited another 
month in prison, not knowing but that each day would 
be their last. Then early one morning they were taken 
out for the third time and hanged. 

John Penry's fate was even more unjust and cruel. 
He had gone to London, partly with the hope that he 
might secure an interview with the Queen, and gain 
permission to preach the gospel in Wales ; but finding 
that he was in peril he hid himself. Yet the day before 
Barrow^e and Greenwood were condemned to death his 
place of concealment w^as discovered by treachery, and 
he was taken to prison. His wife, accompanied by a 
widowed friend, petitioned in his behalf the Lord 
Keeper of the Great Seal. The only result of it was 
that the widow was committed to prison for being with 
Penry's wife when she presented the petition. While 
Penry was in prison, anticipating his end, he wrote his 
latest counsels to his wife, to his four young children, 
the oldest not yet four years old, and to the church. 
The tenderness, the steadfastness, the spirit of trust 
in God, and the overflowing affection of these words 



70 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

make them worthy to be placed beside the dying testi- 
monies of any other Christian martyrs. His enemies 
could not in his books or by inquisitorial examination 
gain sufficient evidence to convict him of sedition ; 
but among his private papers they had come upon some 
notes concerning a memorial to the Queen which he 
had thought of preparing. On these, which had never 
been seen before by anyone but himself, they prepared 
their indictment. He was tried at Westminster Hall, 
without being allowed to defend himself by counsel, 
and of course was convicted. Four days later he was 
sentenced ; and on the fourth day after that, at five 
o'clock in the afternoon he was taken in a cart to the 
second milestone on the Kent road and hanged on a 
tree. The time chosen was an unusual hour in order 
that his friends might not be present. To the few 
who had been drawn to the place by seeing the 
gallows suddenly prepared, he wished to speak ; but 
no word was he allowed to utter. So suffered John 
Penry at thirty-three years of age, the last of the 
English martyrs for Congregationalism. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 

IT had now become evident that EngHsh Congrega- 
tionalists could find neither home nor safety in their 
native land. Just before his death Penry had coun- 
seled the church to seek in a body a refuge in some 
other country. This advice indeed had been made 
imperative by an Act of Parliament passed the day after 
the execution of Barrowe and Greenwood, imposing 
banishment and forfeiture of property on every Sepa- 
ratist who, after three months imprisonment, refused to 
conform. The following year such as could escaped 
to Holland, and after some months settled in Amster- 
dam. P'rancls Johnson and his brother George re- 
mained another year in different prisons, but finally 
they were tried and banished for life. With two others, 
they were sent on two merchant vessels to America, 
but one of the ships having been wrecked off the coast 
of Newfoundland, the other took on board the pas- 
sengers and crew, and put back to England. From 
thence the two brothers and a number of other 
Separatists found their way to Amsterdam. 

Just before Penry 's death he had advised the London 
Church to consult with their brethren In the west and 
north country. Quite a number of them were to be 
found in the counties of Lincoln, York and Nottingham. 
From being Puritans they became Separatists, and 
finally, by necessity, some became Pilgrims. Earnest 

71 



J2 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

preachers of the gospel had stirred them to repentance 
and to the study of the Bible. Holy living exposed 
them to the scorn of their profligate neighbors. Their 
efforts quietly to worship God in their own way in 
private houses brought on them the forces of ecclesias- 
tical oppression, just as their brethren in Norwich and 
London were being persecuted, perhaps about the 
same time. Under this hard discipline they became in 
process of years a people by themselves, and in 1602 
a number of them covenanted together, forming a 
church which centered at Gainsborough, **to walk with 
God and with one another, in the enjoyment of the 
ordinances of God, according to the primitive pattern 
in the Word of God." The next year Queen Elizabeth 
died, and some hope of relief came to them from the 
coming of James I. to the throne. But in this they 
were disappointed. James had some skill and scholar- 
ship, but far more conceit and selfishness. He was as 
hostile to Congregationalism as his predecessor had 
been. 

In 1606 this Separatist Church, for convenience and 
safety in holding assemblies, divided into two bodies. 
One continued to meet in Gainsborough, with John 
Smyth as its pastor, till before the end of the year it emi- 
grated to Amsterdam. The other became the historic 
church at Scrooby, twelve miles distant, meeting in the 
house occupied by William Brewster. He was a gentle- 
man of property, about thirty-four years of age, had been 
educated at Cambridge University, had held office 
under the Queen, and was familiar with public affairs. 
He was living in an old manor house which had for 
a great many years been a possession of the church 
and was at one time a residence of the Archbishop of 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 



73 



York. In that house was the beguining- of New 
England. 

Richard Clyfton was the pastor of the Scrooby 
Church. With him was associated as teacher John 
Robinson, a name famous in the annals of Congrega- 
tionalism, always at the head of the historic list of 
Congregational ministers in the United States, al- 
though he never came personally to this country. He 







SCROOBY MANOR HOUSE. 



was about twenty-five years old, a Master of Arts of 
Cambridge, and had recently been a fellow of Corpus 
Christi College. He is described as " a man of learned, 
polished and modest spirit, pious and studious of the 
truth, largely accomplished, with suitable gifts and 
qualifications."* Later on, Brewster was chosen ruling 
elder. Thus this Scrooby Church, composed of sturdy 
rural Englishmen and their families, devotedly 
studious of the Word of God and loyal to consciences 



74 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

enlightened by it, and manned by worthy and able 
leaders, was preparing itself to be the pioneer of Con- 
gregationalism, and of civil institutions in America. 

Persecution grew hotter as their organization be- 
came known. Their houses were watched and searched 
by officers of ecclesiastical courts. They were driven 
from their places of employment. Some were impris- 
oned ; till at last they resolved, like their brethren in 
London, to escape to the United States of the Nether- 
lands, where there was religious freedom for all. The 
risk was great. They were mostly farmers. They 
were to take their chances in a strange land among 
people who spoke another language, and whose occu- 
pations were mainly manufactures and commerce. 

It was the winter of 1607 when they planned to 
embark from Boston, a seaport about fifty miles distant 
from their homes. But their enemies were as unwilling 
to let them go as to allow them to stay. The ship- 
master who had agreed to take them betrayed them, 
and they were arrested, maltreated and brought back 
from the vessel to the town. After a month of impris- 
onment, all except Brewster and six others were liber- 
ated, and these not long after regained their freedom. 
Six months later they made another attempt to depart, 
on a Dutch ship, from Hull. But when most of the 
men had got on board, the women and children being 
on a bark aground, were surprised by officers and 
taken, while the ship sailed away without them, and, 
was driven about by storms for fourteen days before 
its passengers could land in Holland, uncertain about 
the fate of their families. Thosejeft behind were in 
sad plight, but after a time and having endured many 
hardships they all came together again in Amsterdam. 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 75 

Here they joined themselves with the church which 
had come over from London, and, though they were 
very poor, they found peace. William Bradford, one 
of their number, who had lived as a boy at Austerfield, 
has given so pleasant a picture of them that it deserves 
a place here : 

*' If you had seen them In their beauty and order, as 
we have done, you would have been much affected 
therewith, we dare say. At Amsterdam, before their 
division and breach, there were about three hundred 
communicants, and they had for their pastor and 
teacher those two eminent men before named, and in 
our time four grave men for ruling elders, and three 
able and godly men for deacons, one ancient widow 
for a deaconess, who did them service for many years, 
though she was sixty years of age when she was 
chosen. She honored her place and was an ornament 
to the congregation. She usually sat in a convenient 
place in the congregation, with a little birchen rod in 
her hand, and kept little children in great awe from 
disturbing the congregation. She did frequently visit 
the sick and weak, especially women, and, as there 
was need, called out maids and young women to watch 
and do them other helps as their necessity did require ; 
and if they were poor, she would gather relief for them 
of those that were able, or acquaint the deacons ; and 
she was obeyed as a mother in Israel and an officer 
of Christ." 

Varied fortunes had befallen this Amsterdam church 
during the dozen years or more since it had emigrated 
from London. It had found a worthy successor to 
John Greenwood as its teacher in Henry Ainsworth, 



76 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

who had come over from Ireland. His name is one of 
the most illustrious on the roll of the Separatists, He 
was famous as a Hebrew^ scholar. He was, withal, a 
self-poised, modest and attractive gentleman, and a 
winsome preacher. But troubles had beset the church, 
both without and within. Tolerated by the Dutch 
government, it was regarded with suspicion by the 
Dutch clergy, with some of whom its leaders had had 
controversies in print. In 1596 the church put forth a 
Confession of Faith, by which they sought to answer 
the many slanderous reports concerning them, and to 
gain to a greater degree the confidence of their Dutch 
neighbors. Its preface arraigns the Church of England 
as unchristian, and sets forth the sufferings and motives 
of the Separatists. The Confession itself contains forty- 
five articles, supported by numerous Scriptural refer- 
ences. The confessors plant themselves squarely on 
Calvinistic doctrine, in accordance with the belief of 
the great majority of the Protestant churches at that 
time. Sixteen articles are devoted to the declaration 
of their religious faith. The remainder declare the 
polity of the churches, their officers, ordinances, duties, 
relations to one another and to the civil authorities. 
Many of the statements are evidently answers to 
questions which had arisen in practical experience, and 
mark the growth of the ideas of Congregationalism as 
they were brought to meet practical issues. They call 
on the civil authorities to root out all false ministries 
and false worship of God, and to appropriate to civil 
uses the property of the false church. They make it 
plain that if they had had the power they would have 
punished dissent from their faith as severely as they 
had themselves been punished ; and here their views 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 77 

'differed from those of Browne as to the limits of 
civil authority ; a difference which later largely dis- 
tinguished the Congregationalists of the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony from those who settled at Plymouth. 
Their Confession was reprinted several times within 
the next twenty years in Latin, Dutch and English 
editions. 

But the church suffered more from internal dissen- 
sions than from the prejudices of those without. 
First, the pastor, Francis Johnson, had married a 
widow, whom some members of his family disliked. 
They, especially his brother George, said evil things 
about her and accused her of dressing too fashionably. 
They were particularly grieved because she wore 
whalebones in her dresses and cork on her shoes. 
The scandal led to church discipline and finally to 
excommunication of the pastor's father and brother. 
Next, John Smyth had begun to raise a contention 
by claiming that only the Scriptures in the original 
languages were inspired, and that ministers ought not 
to take translations into the pulpit ; that the people 
should improvise songs in praise to God, that only 
church members should contribute to church expenses, 
that elders were a false ministry, and by maintaining 
various other differences of opinion as to both doctrine 
and polity. Smyth appears to have been an able man, 
with a magnetic nature and unbalanced judgment. 
After a while he drew off a part of the church and 
formed another close by. 

In these discords the Scrooby emigrants had no 
share, and they foresaw that for the sake of peace it 
would be best for them to put some distance between 
them and their belligerent brethren. Leyden, some 



78 COxNGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

twenty-five miles away, was a beautiful city, with a fine 
situation and a famous university. Thither they went, 
by permission of the Leyden authorities. The city then 
had a population of about one hundred thousand. 
The pilgrims soon found employment of one sort or 
another. Elder Brewster taught a school. William 
Bradford, not yet twenty-one years of age, became 
apprentice to a silk-dyer. Edward Winslow went into 
a printing ofifice. The pastor, John Robinson, after 
six years' residence, became a fellow of the university. 
Professor Hornbeek, one of its most eminent instruct- 
ors, wrote of him, ''John Robinson was most dear to 
us while he lived, was on familiar terms with the 
Leyden theologians, and was greatly esteemed by 
them." He soon began to win honor as an author. 
His works were mainly controversial, in defense of the 
doctrines and polity of the Separatists. He accepted, 
somewhat reluctantly, a challenge to meet Arminius in 
public dispute, and proved himself so able a champion 
of Calvinism that he won much honor. In theology 
he defended the doctrines of the Synod of Dort, which 
was convened In Dordrecht in November, 1618. In 
church polity he strenuously maintained the independ- 
ence of the local church and its divine authority as 
opposed to the Established Church. But he was more 
broad-minded and tolerant than most of the other 
Separatist leaders, while his abilities no less than his 
character have won for him the foremost place in the 
early history of Congregatlonalists. Such sentences 
as this, taken from his *' Essays," throw a flood of light 
on his spirit : *' Men are often accounted heretics with 
greater sin through want of charity in the judges than 
in the judged through defect of faith." 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 79 

Robinson was greatly beloved by his people, and 
under his wise administration the church ofrew in 
numbers and in favor with the Dutch among whom 
they lived. They became more prosperous in their 
business affairs as time went on. They were honest, 
peaceable and lawabiding. At the end of their stay 
in Leyden the magistrates of the city declared that 
'' These English have lived among us now these twelve 
years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation 
come against any of them." 

But as^ years passed it became evident that no 
great future awaited them there. They were aliens 
in language. They were exiles. They did not wish to 
leave their children in Holland, and there was no 
likelihood of their being permitted to return to Eng- 
land. They dreaded the prospect of falling away 
and final disappearance as a separate organization, 
which indeed came to be the history of those who 
remained behind in Amsterdam. They longed for 
freedom, for their own Puritan Sabbath, for schools for 
their children, for some field where they might have 
encouragement to lay the foundations of a Christian 
commonwealth, and to give to others the gospel they 
loved more than any earthly gain and even life itself. 
They had in them more than they themselves realized, 
the character and the ambition of statesmen. 

Fifteen years before the Separatists had petitioned 
Elizabeth for permission to form a colony in America, 
but in vain. Now again the wiser ones began to look 
away across the seas to the new land the tidings of 
which had stirred so many Englishmen to deeds of 
adventure and daring. But theirs was the noblest type 
of ambition ; not to make conquests or to win for 



80 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

themselves renown, but in the simple yet sublime 
language of one of their number, to lay '* some good 
foundation, or at least make some way thereunto, for 
the propagating and advancing of the kingdom of 
Christ in those remote parts of the world ; yea, 
though they should be but eveji as stepping stones 
unto others for the performing of so great a work." 
The idea grew as they discussed it, and prayed over it ; 
put new life and courage into them, and at last took 
shape in a plan to emigrate to America. 

Some ten years before, two colonizing corporations 
had been created by King James, one in London and 
the other in Plymouth. To the Virginia Company of 
London the Pilgrims determined to apply for a grant 
of territory in what was then called Virginia, and to 
the King for permission to live in it as a distinct 
community. In September, 1617, they sent John 
Carver and Robert Cushman to England to make the 
negotiations. The company was willing, but the King 
refused, and the messengers returned. James I. was 
too small a man to tolerate Congregationalists, or 
Brownists, as they were then called, anywhere in his 
dominions, even in a wilderness across the ocean. In 
December Carver and Cushman returned to England 
again, and through some influential friends at court 
succeeded, after making many protestations and expla- 
nations, in wringing out of the churlish monarch and 
his bishops a sort of vague verbal promise that they 
" would connive at them and not molest them, provided 
they carried themselves peaceably." Weary months of 
waiting and disappointment followed, till at last they 
received from the Virginia Company a patent ''con- 
firmed under the company's seal." 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 8 1 

The next questions to be settled were, how should 
the money be raised to pay for their expenses of emi- 
g-ration, and who of the Leyden company should go. 
The first question was in a measure answered by the 
report which Cushman brought from England — where 
he had left Brewster to forward the interests of the 
Pilgrims — that some friends in England wished to go 
with them to Virginia, and that some merchants, 
among them '' one Mr. Thomas Weston," had offered 
to furnish the money. But to decide on both ques- 
tions there was appointed a day of humiliation and 
prayer to seek the guidance of the Lord, when Pastor 
Robinson preached a notable sermon from i Samuel 
xxiii. 3-4 — a text whose final sentence, ''Arise, go down 
to Keilah ; for I will deliver the Philistines into thy 
hand," seems to carry with it a strong affirmative vote. 
Then they discussed who should go. Some were too 
old or too feeble for the hardships to be faced. Some 
could not at once leave their business affairs. From 
those who could go a sufficient number were chosen, 
and it was agreed that the pastor should remain with 
those who stayed behind, but that Elder Brewster 
should accompany the pioneers. It was of course 
hoped that the whole company would before long be 
reunited in the New World. It was settled that each 
body should act as an independent church while they 
were separated, but that when Robinson should rejoin 
the colony he should be received as pastor without any 
new election. Those who were to go on the first expe- 
dition sold the goods they could not carry with them, 
closed their business affairs and waited anxiously for 
the time of their departure. 

But unexpected difficulties were arising in England, 



82 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

The Plymouth Virginia Company had revived under a 
new corporate name, and was negotiating with the King 
for a new charter, giving to it ''the northern parts of 
Virginia," the region from the 41st to the 45th parallel 
of latitude. This country was to be called New 
England, a name which had been proposed by Captain 
John Smith. Thomas Weston, the London merchant, 
and some others who had offered to assist them, were 
in favor of their giving up their patent from the 
London Company and settling in New England. 
Weston, who went over from London to Leyden to 
visit and encourage them, was much more anxious 
for the profits of fur and codfish than for the wel- 
fare of the Pilgrims. He persuaded them to give 
up consideration of a favorable offer of assistance 
from the Amsterdam Trading Company, which was 
interested in the settlement of the country about 
the mouth of the Hudson River. Finally, though 
without apparently any formal decision, the general 
opinion favored going to the territory of the Ply- 
mouth Company and getting a patent from that body 
afterward. 

While they were waiting, some of the friends in 
England who had proposed to go with them withdrew 
from their agreement. Some of the merchants who 
were to furnish money did the same on various excuses. 
A compact had been drawn up between thd Adventurers 
on the one hand, who were to furnish funds, and the 
Planters or Pilgrims on the other. To this Weston 
had agreed, but when the Pilgrims had fully committed 
themselves he insisted on changes ; and having them 
in his power, succeeded with his associates in driving 
with Carver, as representative of the Pilgrims, a very 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 83 

hard bargain. Both parties were to form a joint-stock 
company. The shares were put at ^lo each. Each 
Pilgrim over sixteen years of age was counted as a 
share, and each under sixteen and over ten, half a 
share. The colony was to be supported out of the 
common stock, and at the end of seven years all the 
profits were to be equally divided ; so that those who 
stayed at home and gave money were to have as 
much as those who spent their Hves in labor and 
hardship. 

At last, after three years of effort from the time 
emigration was first proposed, a vessel of 60 tons, the 
"Speedwell," was bought in Holland; and another, the 
'' Mayflower," of 180 tons, was hired in London, and 
both were equipped for the voyage. The time for their 
departure having come, they all observed a day of 
humiliation and prayer, with an appropriate sermon by 
the pastor, preaching on Ezra viii. 21. In the Geneva 
version, which the Pilgrims used, the words are these : 
"And there at the river by Ahava I proclaimed a fast 
that we might humble ourselves before our God, and 
seek of him a right way for us, and for our children, 
and for all our substance." Then those who were to 
stay in Leyden gave to the Pilgrims a feast in the 
pastor's house, after which they went together to Delfs- 
haven, about fourteen miles distant, where the " Speed- 
well " was lying. There they spent the night with little 
sleep, but in "friendly entertainment and Christian 
discourse." In the morning, July 12 (O. S.), 1620, with 
abundant leavetakings and tears, after a parting prayer 
by the pastor, the Pilgrims went on board the ship 
and, borne by favorable winds, were in a few hours at 
Southampton. Here they found the "Mayflower" 



84 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

waiting. But here also they learned the changed terms 
which Cushman had accepted from Weston, and they 
refused to ratify them. They had expected that 
Weston would settle obligations they had incurred to 
the amount of about ^loo. He angrily refused to dis- 
burse a penny and left them. But undismayed by his 
heartless abandonment of them, they sold a part of 
their scanty stores, including about ^60 worth of pro- 
visions, " to clear things at their going away." By 
August 5 they were ready to depart. A farewell let- 
ter from Robinson was read to them, filled with noble 
and affectionate counsels. The company was divided 
between the two vessels, and they set sail for their new 
home in the wilderness. Twice they had to put back 
for repairs, having found the *' Speedwell " unsea- 
worthy; and finally they abandoned her, putting 
ashore about twenty who chose to remain behind, 
while the others were crowded into the " Mayflower." 
That vessel, with one hundred and two passengers, 
finally departed, September 6, for the New World. 

We have now followed the story of these despised 
and persecuted Separatists, from the time when Robert 
Browne first at Norwich declared that the church of 
Christ was the voluntary association of believers in 
covenant with Him till such a company of believers, 
who had abandoned home and fortune and had passed 
through weary years of trial in order that they might 
stand for that principle, were afloat on the ocean with 
their faces set toward a land where they hoped to plant 
such a church, undisturbed from without. It has been 
well said that the three most famous ships in history are 
Noah's Ark, the " Argo," and the " Mayflower." The 
last is the most illustrious of them all ; for she bore 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN EXILE IN HOLLAND. 85 

those who, hardly conscious of it themselves, carried 
within them the beginning of a great nation with ideas 
of lo3'alty to the truth revealed by God, of liberty in 
discovering it and of energy in putting it into practice 
which were to make it one of the most important fac- 
tors in modern history. John Robinson had solemnly 
charged them in his farewell words, as one then present 
reported years afterward, *' to follow him no farther than 
he followed Christ ; and, if God should reveal anything 
to us by any other instrument of His, to be as ready to 
receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his 
ministry ; for he was very confident the Lord had more 
truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy 
Word." The Reformation of a century before had 
rediscovered the Bible. Luther's great doctrine of 
justification by faith had created the Protestant Church. 
These Pilgrims had found truth in the Word of God 
to them as precious and significant as Luther's was to 
him. The discovery of it, the living of it against foes, 
constant witnessing to it at whatever cost made them 
the heroic men and women who could found a free 
church with a free state where everyone could worship 
God according to the dictates of his own conscience. 
The idea which engaged their thoughts was a spontane- 
ous association in covenant of renewed souls in fellow- 
ship with Christ and one another. They believed that 
no civil authority could put anyone into a church 
or take anyone out of it. Only Christ through His 
renewing spirit could make one fit for any such fellow- 
ship. Only his brethren as his peers could judge of 
his fitness ; and from their judgment there was no 
court of appeal but to Christ as the head of the church. 
That idea at the beginning of a commonwealth meant, 



86 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

when it should have worked itself out in experience, 
complete independence of church and state, and com- 
plete liberty, with equal sovereign rights, in both. The 
seed of that free government was in the " Mayflower " 
and in the compact made in it. The fruit of it is 
the American Republic. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 

SIXTY-FIVE days the church which was to plant 
itself in the wilderness and lay the foundations of 
a notable commonwealth was tossed on the sea in the 
"' Mayflower." In the early dawn of November 9 the 
wanderers saw land, which seemed to them " so goodly 
a land . . . wooded to the bank of the sea." It was 
Cape Cod. 

But they were bound for the Hudson River, to the 
region where their patent entitled them to plant a 
colony. They turned southward, but soon found them- 
selves among shoals and breakers. Retracing their 
path, the next day they came to anchor in what is now 
Provincetown Harbor. There they knelt and gave 
thanks to God for the privilege " again to set their feet 
on the firm and solid earth." 

When they found that they must land on this coast, 
to which their patent gave them no right, they first 
faced the question how they should live together in 
peace and order. In the territory where they were 
going to settle, none of the company had any authority 
from the mother country to govern. Not all were 
members of the church. Some had already begun to 
talk about using their liberty when they should get on 
shore. Unless they could be held together, there was 
little hope that any would long survive. The church 
was already bound by a strict mutual covenant. But 

87 



88 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

to include also those outside of it, a civil compact was 
drawn up — the constitution and foundation of a Chris- 
tian republic in the New World. It acknowledged the 
right of everyone who signed it to share in making 
and administering the laws, and the right of the 
majority to rule. It was the constitution of a pure 
democracy, the principle of their church government 
applied to the state. This instrument, for several 
years, was all the law they had. By it they chose their 
first governor, John Carver, and later other officers, and 
administered in orderly fashion their civil affairs. This 
was their Magna Charta, signed by forty-one names : 

" In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are 
vnderwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread Sove- 
raigne Lord King James, by the grace of God of 
Great Britaine, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of 
the Faith, &c. 

" Having vndertaken for the glory of God, and ad- 
vancement of the Christian Faith, and honor of our 
King and Countrey, a Voyage to plant the first Colony 
in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these 
presents solemnly & mutually, in the presence of 
God and one of another, covenant, and combine our- 
selues together into a civill body politike, for our better 
ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends 
aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, 
and frame such iust and equall Lawes, Ordinances, 
Acts, constitutions, offices from time to time, as shall 
be thought most meet and convenient for the generall 
good of the Colony : vnto which we promise all due 
submission and obedience. In witnesse whereof we 
haue here-vnder subscribed our names. Cape Cod, 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 89 

II of November, in the yeare of the raigne of our 
Soveraigne Lord King James, of England, France, 
and Ireland 18. and of Scotland 54. Anno Dom- 
ino, 1620." 

They spent a month on shipboard amid storms and 
cold, successive parties exploring the coast to find 
a suitable place for a settlement. At last, on Fri- 
day night, December 8, after dark, the exploring 
party of eighteen men, in a northeast storm of 
snow and rain, landed from their shallop at Clark's 
Island. The next day they dried their clothing, and 
on the day following kept the Sabbath ; and on Mon- 
day, December 11 (New Style 21), they went to 
the mainland, and '' found diverse cornfields, and little 
running brooks : a place, as they supposed, fit for situa- 
tion." When they returned to the ship, which was still 
off the shore at Cape Cod, Bradford was met by the 
news that his wife had fallen overboard and been 
drowned during his absence. 

Friday of that week the " Mayflower " furled her sails 
in the harbor which six years before Captain John 
Smith had named Plymouth. There, on Sabbath, they 
worshiped on shipboard ; and during the week follow- 
ing, after asking guidance from God, by a majority 
vote they decided to begin their settlement on the 
slope of what became Burial Hill, looking seaward. 
Bradford wrote of it, "In one field is a great hill 
on which we point to make a platform and plant 
our ordinance which will command all round about. 
From thence we may see into the bay, and far into the 
sea ; and we may see thence Cape Cod." There, on 
Christmas Day, which they ignored as a pagan festival. 



90 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

they began to build their first house ; and there the 
Pilgrim Church at last found a home. 

They had a terrible winter, in constant apprehension 
from Indian foes, suffering from exposure, want and 
sickness, till when spring came fully one-half their 
number were under the sod of Burial Hill. The sur- 
vivors carefully leveled the graves of their friends in 
order that Indian visitors might not know how much 
their numbers had been reduced by death. Yet when, 
in April, the ** Mayflower" sailed away home, not a 
single Pilgrim returned in her. They had found seed 
corn for planting. The land had been cleared for them 
by Indians, whom a plague had mostly cleared from the 
earth three or four years before. They had made 
a treaty with Massasoit's tribe. They had re-elected 
Carver as their governor. They had disciplined the 
first offender, and were preparing, under the instruc- 
tion of Squanto, their Indian friend, to plant twenty 
acres of corn, and to catch a supply of herring at the 
mouth of the town brook. 

Before April had gone, Governor Carver suddenly 
sickened and died, and William Bradford was elected 
to fill his place. But as he was only just recovering 
from illness Isaac Allerton was chosen as his assistant, 
and thus the office of lieutenant orovernorbeean. The 
little Republic — for such it was, though under the nom- 
inal rule of King James — was developing its organiza- 
tion as occasion demanded. 

Then came the first New England wedding. Wil- 
liam White had died, leaving his widow Susanna, with 
two little boys, one of them born on the '' Mayflower," 
Edward Winslow's wife had died durine the winter. 
Susanna White became the wife of Winslow. By 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMAMENT HOME. 9I 

English law they could not be married without a priest 
and the ceremonies of the church. But they had 
learned the way of civil marriage in Leyden, and in 
presence of Governor Bradford they entered into 
the sacred covenant. The colony had already begun 
to be independent both of the English church and 
the English state. 

In November the ship ''Fortune" came from their 
partners, the Adventurers in England, with Cushman 
and a re-enforcement of thirty-five persons, not all of 
them desirable additions to their company, but all with 
mouths to feed. She brought also a complaining letter 
from Thomas Weston, and started back, with Cush- 
man, on the anniversary of the landing at Plymouth a 
year before. The attempt of these newcomers to 
make Christmas a holiday that year by playing ball 
and other sports was promptly suppressed by the 
Governor. They said it was against their consciences 
to work on that day, and he replied that it was against 
his conscience for them to play while the others 
worked. 

Yet they had kept, In a sort, the month before, the 
day which became the great New England festival of 
Thanksgiving. When their first harvest was gathered, 
they killed a number of wild duck and turkey, and 
with five deer which Massasoit and ninety of his men 
brought with them on a visit, they had a three days' 
feast. 

By the next summer they had erected a building 
which was a combined fort and house of worship. A 
Dutch merchant, De Rasieres, who visited Plymouth 
in 1627, thus described it and their Sabbath services: 
*' Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a 



92 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

flat roof made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak 
beams, upon the top of which they have six cannons 
which shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and com- 
mand the surrounding country. The lower part they 
use for their church, where they preach on Sundays 
and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of 
drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the 
captain's door ; they have their cloaks on and place 
themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a 
sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the 
Governor in a long robe ; beside him on the right 
hand comes the preacher with his cloak on ; and on 
the left hand the captain, with his side arms and cloak 
on and with a small cane in his hand ; and so they 
march in good order and each sets his arms down near 
him." 

The Pilgrims had as great obstacles to overcome 
from their own countrymen as from Indians and the 
wilderness. Thomas Weston proved to be one of 
their greatest trials. He had much increased the 
difficulties of their departure from England. But now 
having separated entirely from their enterprise, he had 
undertaken to plant a colony on his own account. In 
the summer of 1622 two vessels, with fifty or sixty of 
his men, arrived at Plymouth, where they speedily 
became a nuisance to the Pilgrims who, nevertheless, 
entertained them kindly. They stole the unripe ears 
of corn and otherwise abused the hospitality they 
received. In the autumn they attempted to plant a 
colony at Wessagussett, some twenty miles north of 
Plymouth, but early in the next year they fell into 
trouble with the Indians, who, because of their false 
dealing with them, formed a conspiracy to exterminate 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 



93 




all the English. This compelled the Pilgrims to send 
their captain, Myles Standish, with a company of eight 
men to teach the Indians a lesson, which the brave 
captain did by killing three of them in a hand-to-hand 
fight and hanging another. This was not in the plans 
of those who had hoped to give the gospel to the 
natives of that new 
land ; and Robinson, 
when he heard of it, 
wrote plaintively to 
his brethren : " Oh, 
how happy a thing it 
had been if you had 
converted some before 
you had killed any." 
But it proved to be 
the last chapter in the 
short history of Wes- 
ton's colony. Men without moral quality, only con- 
trolled by selfish aims, were not of the sort to face 
the difficulties of a new land and found a stable gov- 
ernment. 

That year, 1623, began with severe discouragements 
for the Plymouth settlers. They had little to eat in 
the spring and no encouraging prospects. A long 
season of dry weather followed their corn-planting, 
and threatened the destruction of the crop. The 
vessel they were expecting to bring them supplies did 
not arrive, but some wreckage drifted on the coast. 
Then In their extremity they appointed by public 
authority a day In July, to be set apart from all other 
employments as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer. 
They assembled in the morning under a clear sky, but 



MYLES STANDISH HOUSE, DUXBURY, MASS. 
BUILT BY HIS SON, 1666. 



94 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

before they had ceased praying clouds had gathered 
which next morning ''distilled soft, sweet and mod- 
erate showers of rain." These showers, with intervals 
of fair weather, continued for two weeks and even- 
tually saved their crops. Meanwhile Captain Standish 
returned from an expedition to the settlement at the 
mouth of the Pascataqua River, bringing supplies of 
food. Tidings came that their expected vessel was 
safe, though driven back by storms ; and that the ship 
''Anne," with many of their friends from Delfshaven, 
would soon arrive. In their joy and gratitude at these 
brightening prospects, they set apart another solemn 
day for thanksgiving "to our good God who dealt so 
graciously with us — whose name, for these and all his 
other mercies toward his church and chosen ones, by 
them be blessed and praised now and evermore." In 
these records and others like them we see the roots of 
those customs of public recognition of God by the 
state which have survived to this day, and which 
would have a stronger h61d upon the churches if the 
memory of the guiding Providence of God in those 
early days were kept more green. 

Another peril to the Pilgrim Church was the arrival 
of Captain Robert Gorges with a commission as gov- 
ernor general of the whole country. He was a 
nephew of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a gentleman promi- 
nent in the councils of King James, and a leading 
member of companies organized to establish colonies 
in America. Captain Gorges came with great iclat, 
intending to extend his government over all the 
various colonies — of which by this time there were 
several — along the coast. On his arrival, in Septem- 
ber, 1623, he attempted, with the company he brought, 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 95 

to found another colony at the place which Weston's 
men had abandoned a few months before. He brought 
a chaplain who was expected to represent in New 
England the Church of Old England and to exercise 
jurisdiction over the souls of all the people. But the 
next spring the would-be governor general returned 
in disgust to England, the most of the colony scat- 
tered, and the remainder, with the chaplain, were 
helped with supplies from Plymouth. He wrote a 
Latin poem about the country, but seems not to have 
done much else, and the next year he returned to 
England. Those men were not of the stuff which 
makes stable government in a new land. 

A much greater danger to the Pilgrims came from 
the presence among them of a number of persons who 
had been eager to enlist in the new enterprise, but 
who had no sympathy with its aims. Many of the 
Adventurers in England who helped to support the 
colony in the hope of gaining a profitable return from 
their investment, were Puritans who hated the princi- 
ples of the Separatists. They kept John Robinson 
from joining his flock, and their dislike was fostered 
by false stories concerning the colony, sent home by 
the discontented ones. They sent to Plymouth John 
Lyford, who professed to be a Puritan minister from 
Ireland, hoping that the Pilgrims would take him as 
their preacher. Robinson seems to have been aware 
of the Puritan opposition to his rejoining his people 
across the sea, and in his last letter to them wrote : 
*' The Adventurers, it seems, have neither money nor 
any great mind of us, for the most part. They den)- it 
to be any part of the covenants between us that they 
should transport us ; neither do I look for any further 



96 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

help from them till means come from you." Yet It is 
not to be supposed that the Puritans knew the char- 
acter of the man they sent in the hope that he would 
be received in place of Robinson. Lyford proved to 
be a hypocrite and a liar. He knew how to weep, and 
to feign humility and adrnlration of those from whom 
he sought favors. He united with the church with so 
exceedingly earnest confession of his faith, and so pro- 
fuse expressions of his joy in the opportunity of having 
liberty to worship God according to his conscience, 
that he seems to have been regarded from the first with 
some suspicion, and he was not received as the minister 
of the church, but only with liberty to prophesy. 
Before long he, with John Oldham, was caught plot- 
ting against the colony and sending lying letters to 
England. Both were tried, convicted and sentenced 
to be expelled from the colony. Lyford, after con- 
fessing his sin with many tears, was permitted to 
remain for six months longer, partly on account of his 
large family ; but before that time had passed he was 
caught again In the same mischievous business. Old- 
ham, having returned without permission after his 
banishment, behaved so Insolently that the governor 
had a guard of musketeers drawn up and made him 
pass through the line, '' receiving from everyone a 
parting thump with a musket as he passed by." 

A number of the Puritan Adventurers, discouraged 
in their efforts to make the colony what they wished, 
believing that a company of Separatists would not 
attract many settlers, finally insisted that their com- 
pany in England should govern the colony, and that 
Its people should be not Separatists but members of 
the Church of England. These demands the colonists 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 



97 



refused to acknowledge, and the contract between the 
Adventurers and the Planters came to an end. That 
proved a fortunate thing for Plymouth. Though bur- 
dened with a heavy debt, they were now independent. 
Each colonist received his own allotment of land and 




I ,1- 



i-U^ 



'-^ 



—fi 

. ! 









"^\! n 









r-' 




THE JOHN ROBINSON MEMORIAL TABLET, ST, PETER S CHURCH, 
LEYDEN, HOLLAND. 

his own home. New ambitions were roused in them, 
and increased prosperity followed. 

Still the Pilgrim Church had no pastor dwelling 
among them, though William Brewster had regularly 
conducted services, preaching and teaching as their 
ruling elder. They constantly hoped for the coming 
of their pastor, John Robinson, from Leyden, and he 



98 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

as earnestly desired to join them. But March i, 1626, 
after a short illness he died in Leyden, to the great 
grief of his followers in Holland and in New England. 
His memory is still held in reverence on both sides of 
the ocean. Almost three centuries after he first en- 
tered Leyden, July 24, 1891, in the presence of a large 
assembly of eminent American and English Congrega- 
tionalists, with a company of the prominent citizens 
of Leyden, a memorial tablet to him was unveiled in 
a recess of St. Peter's Church, opposite to the house 
where he had lived. The tablet bears this inscription : 

THE MAYFLOWER, 1620. 



In Memory of 

Rev. John Robinson, M. A., 

Pastor of the English Church worshiping over 

against this spot, a. d. 1609-1625, whence 

at his prompting went forth 

the pilgrim fathers 

To settle in New England 
in 1620. 

Buried under this house of worship, 
4 March, 1625. 

aet xlix years. 

In memoria cEterna erit Justus. 

Erected by the National Council of the Congre« 

gational Churches of the United States 

of America, a. d. 1891. 

To that assembly Dr. Kuenen, professor in the 
University of Leyden, said : 

" Ladies and gentlemen, when you have gone back 



THE PILGRIM CHURCH IN ITS PERMANENT HOME. 99 

to America, tell your countrymen that the citizens of 
Leyden and the members of its University are proud 
to possess in the midst of us the monument you have 
dedicated to-day, and that we like to consider it as a 
pledge of the future lasting friendship of both the 
countries, America and our Fatherland, whose early 
history, as that monument testifies, is so closely iden- 
tified. Tell them that we say that in that monument 
we have a pledge of hearty co-operation in the common 
love for civil and religious freedom." 

In 1628 Isaac Allerton returned from a journey to 
England in the interests of the colony, bringing with 
him Mr. Rogers, a young minister. But they soon 
found that he was insane, and sent him back home the 
next year. Nine years had passed, yet the only pastor 
they had known was he who had planned their emigra- 
tion, but whose body had been laid in the grave at 
Leyden. 

But now the few friends in London who had re- 
mained loyal to the Pilgrims, and sympathized with 
their desire that the company which had been left 
behind in Holland might join them again, generously 
lent their aid. Thirty-five of the Leyden remnant 
reached Plymouth in the summer of 1629. Early the 
next year the last remaining members followed them, 
and the long emigration which began from Scrooby 
more than twenty years before was ended. They had 
found a home and founded a commonwealth in New 
England. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 

THE first Puritans of Massachusetts came hither 
with no intention of separating from the Church 
of England. They were of the Reform party within 
the church. They stood between it and the Sepa- 
ratists, disapproving of both. They hoped to make 
something better than either, which should still be the 
Church of England, Yet, as Robinson had predicted, 
the simple fact of removal from England to the New 
World made the Puritan emigrants become Separatists, 
though they did not for some time realize the change 
which had been wrought. 

The first Puritan settlement began with a little com- 
pany of fishermen on Cape Ann. Its chief patron 
was John White, a noted Puritan minister of Dor- 
chester, England, and it was maintained by a company 
formed in that town. This settlement began in 1624, 
Roger Conant being superintendent of the plantation. 
John Lyford, after his deserved expulsion from the 
Plymouth Colony, found his way thither, and repre- 
senting that he had left Plymouth because his 
conscience could not abide the Separatists, was 
received as a minister. The settlement did not 
prosper, and being given up the second year by the 
Dorchester Company, most of the men went back to 
England. 

100 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. lOI 

But Roger Conant, with a few others, remained. 
He informed Mr. White that there was a better chance 
for a colony at Naumkeag, a little west of Cape Ann, 
and suggested that it '' might prove a receptacle for 
such as upon the account of religion would be willing 
to begin a foreign plantation in the New World." 
Conant sought to plant a Puritan colony, as far from 
Popery on the one hand as from Separatism on the 
other. White, who never came to America, promised 
to help him. The company removed to Naumkeag. 
Lyford, having had, or claiming to have had, a call to 
Virginia, persuaded most of the company to break 
their engagement to stay, and to follow him thither. 
Conant declared that he would stand firm, though 
everyone should forsake him. He persuaded his three 
associates, who had also accepted White's offer of help, 
to remain with him. 

Early in 1628, under White's leadership, the Com- 
pany of Massachusetts Bay was organized in England. 
It received a grant of " that part of New England 
which lies between the Merrimack and Charles rivers 
in the bottom of Massachusetts Bay." The grant 
included the land beyond this tract three miles from 
the banks of both rivers. The scheme for a Puritan 
colony was furthered by the growing conviction in the 
Puritan party in England that it would find justice at 
home only through revolution and war. Captain John 
Endecott, a brave and earnest Puritan, was chosen 
to govern the new plantation, and with his wife 
and about forty others arrived in the ship '' Abigail," 
September 6, of that year. Some discontent arose 
between the newcomers and those already on the 
ground, but it was soon removed by prudent man- 



I02 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

agement ; and in memory of that event the name 
of the plantation was changed to Salem, which 
means Peace. 

Soon they were visited with severe sickness, and 
Captain Endecott applied to Plymouth Colony for help. 
Dr. Samuel Fuller, deacon of the Pilgrim church and 
physician of the colony, was sent to Salem. He 
brought with him more than healing for the body. 
He gave the New England Puritans so true an idea of 
the New England Pilgrims that they were drawn toward 
that union which in years to come was to result in one 
denomination of Christians and one commonwealth. 
Govenor Endecott, writing to Governor Bradford in 
grateful acknowledgment of Dr. Fuller's services, 
declared himself convinced that the Pilgrims' method 
of worship was right. '' It is," he wrote, *'as far as I 
can gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence 
of truth, and the same which I have professed and 
maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed him- 
self to me ; being very far different from the common 
report that hath been spread of you touching that 
particular." 

Governor Endecott soon had an opportunity to put 
in practice his theories of church worship, and of 
church government also, for the next year, 1629, the 
Massachusetts Company, encouraged by reports of the 
prosperity of the plantation, sent out six vessels with 
nearly four hundred persons, live stock and extensive 
equipments for the settlers. With this company came 
four ministers. Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton 
and Francis Bright were Puritans ; Ralph Smith was 
a Separatist, and when that fact was discovered he 
came near having to give up his passage. He was 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 103 

finally permitted to sail under restrictions. These 
Puritan ministers did not propose to renounce the 
mother church. Higginson had been forbidden to 
officiate as a minister in England because of his views, 
yet he is said to have gathered his children and the 
other passengers into the stern of the ship as they 
passed Land's End, and to have used these words : 
'' We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to say 
at their leaving of England, 'Farewell, Babylon ! fare- 
well, Rome ! ' but we will say, * Farewell, dear England, 
farewell, the Church of God in England and all the 
Christian friends there.' We do not go to New Eng- 
land as Separatists from the Church of England, 
though we cannot but separate from the corrup- 
tions in it ; but Ave go to practice the positive part 
of church reformation, and propagate the gospel 
in America." Perhaps the presence of that Sep- 
aratist minister might have added emphasis to these 
words. 

The company was careful to provide able preachers, 
because it was in a true sense a foreign missionary 
organization. They sought not only to plant a Chris- 
tian colony, but to Christianize the Indians also. They 
avowed ''that the propagating of the gospel is a thing 
we do profess above all to be our aim in settling this 
plantation." The Puritan not less than the Pilgrim 
colony was a religious enterprise, planned and carried 
out by Christian men. These three ministers con- 
tracted with the company which sent them, " to do 
their uttermost to further the main end of this planta- 
tion," to secure " by the assistance of Almighty God 
the conversion of the savages." Each minister was to 
have from the company for an outfit twenty pounds. 



104 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

also ten pounds for books and a salary of twenty 
pounds a year. He had free passage to New England, 
with house, food and firewood, to be furnished by the 
colony. Higginson had ten pounds a year in addition 
on account of his large family. 

Ralph Smith soon found his way to Plymouth and 
became the first pastor in that colony. The other 
ministers remained at Salem. But somehow it was at 
once felt that though they were regularly ordained, and 
the people to whom they came w^ere members of the 
Church of England, something more was needed to 
qualify them for the exercise of the pastoral office in 
this new land. The governor talked the matter over 
with the chief men of the colony. The result was that 
he appointed a day of fasting and prayer for the con- 
sideration of church affairs. On that day, July 20, all 
places of business being closed, Messrs. Higginson and 
Skelton gave their views as to the church and an- 
swered questions as to the ministerial calling ; and 
their statements being satisfactory, a ballot was taken, 
** every fit member voting," and Mr. Skelton was 
chosen pastor and Mr. Higginson, teacher. This Is 
the first instance on record of the use of the printed 
ballot in America. These two men accepted the call 
thus extended, and at once were formally set apart for 
their work. First Mr. Higginson, with three or four 
of the gravest members, laid hands on Mr. Skelton 
with prayer. Then, in like manner, hands were laid on 
Mr. Higginson. An elder and two deacons were also 
nominated, but their election was postponed, because 
it was thought that some more able men might 
be sent over from England from whom the 
church might choose. Some have supposed that 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. I05 

there was already a covenant between a few persons, 
who did the voting while the rest of the colonists 
looked on, but the evidence does not support this 
conjecture. 

The people now had ministers of their choice, but 
there was as yet no distinct church organization. In 
England every baptized person was a member of the 
church. But these Salem Puritans had already taken 
the first step which made inevitable a separation of the 
church from the world, of those who surrendered 
themselves to the leadership of Christ and received the 
Holy Spirit from those who refused that leadership 
and rejected the Holy Spirit. They had formally 
elected their own ministers, thus assuming the respon- 
sibilities of church government which in England 
belonged only to the bishops and clergy. Naturally 
the question arose as to who were the proper persons 
to guide the affairs of the church in Salem. The 
national church was thousands of miles away, the 
colonists were beginning in a new land where -they 
must decide for themselves what rules they would fol- 
low, what institutions they would plant. They had 
the New Testament as their guide, and they fully 
believed in it. Mr. Higginson, the newly chosen pas- 
tor, was requested to draw up a *' Confession of faith 
and church covenant according to the Scripture." 
Copies of the document so prepared were distributed 
to thirty selected persons who were invited, by pub- 
licly adopting this confession and entering into this 
covenant, to form a church. 

Was this method adopted in Imitation of the example 
of the Separatists of England and of Plymouth ? Did 
the conversation of Deacon Fuller with Governor Ende- 



Io6 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

cott and his fellow colonists persuade them of the wis- 
dom of thus organizing churches after the apostolic 
pattern, or did they simply put In practice the teachings 
of the New Testament ? We cannot answer these 
questions. The men of that time could not answer 
them. John Cotton, who came to New England four 
years after the organization of this Salem Church, 
wrote, " How far they of Salem take up any practice 
from Plymouth I do not know. Sure I am that Mr. 
Skelton was studious of that way before he left Lin- 
colnshire. If the dissuader knew the spirit of those 
men who came hither, after Plymouth, he would 
easily discern that they were not such as would 
be leavened by vicinity of neighbors, but by the 
divinity of the truth of God shining forth from the 
Word." 

But the covenant into which they entered, as Hig- 
ginson wrote it, so far as it is preserved, was as fol- 
lows : " We covenant with the Lord and one with 
another, and do bind ourselves In the presence of 
God, to walk together in all His ways, according 
as He is pleased to reveal Himself unto us in 
His blessed Word of Truth." It was in substance 
the same as that covenant of the Separatist Church 
formed in London in 1592, which elected Francis 
Johnson for its minister and John Greenwood for 
its teacher. 

These steps having been taken, the 6th of 
August was appointed as another day of fasting, 
humiliation and prayer. When the appointed day 
came all secular business was suspended, both the 
ministers preached, public services continued through 
the day, till near its close the confession and covenant 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. I07 

were read, to which these thirty persons solemnly 
assented, and thus constituted a church of Christ. It 
was necessarily a church of the Congregational order. 
Then brethren appointed by the church proceeded to 
install these persons into the offices to which they had 
appointed them by publicly laying hands on them and 
by prayer. 

Representatives of that church at Plymouth, one of 
whom was Governor Bradford, presented themselves, 
and shared in the closing part of the services, proba- 
bly in compliance with an invitation for that purpose. 
Having been detained by adverse winds they did not 
arrive till the services were in progress, but having 
heard the statement of the election of officers, the 
mutual confession and covenant, and the formal 
Induction of the ministers, elder and deacons into 
office, they in behalf of their church "gave the right 
hand of fellowship," thus signifying "their approbation 
and concurrence." 

Thus the ministers who had been at first chosen and 
set apart for their office by the people of what might 
be called the parish were by a second service installed 
as pastor and teacher of the newly organized church. 
Thus the second Congregational church in America, 
and the first organized on American soil, began its 
existence by a voluntary separation from the world of 
those v^^ho constituted it, and by their voluntary coven- 
ant to walk together in obedience to Christ. Instead 
of bishops, priests and curates, set over them without 
their consent, they chose and set apart ministers with 
fasting and prayer that the Holy Spirit would direct 
their choice. Instead of rites and ceremonies Imposed 
on them by the arbitrary will of a monarch led by a 



I08 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

hierarchy using the power of the state, they substi- 
tuted simple forms of worship as the Holy Spirit 
should lead them. Instead of ecclesiastical courts 
enforcing conformity, they introduced the princi- 
ple of the self-government of each local church 
with such fellowship among the churches, without 
authority, as would promote purity of life, main- 
tain general harmony of belief, and secure co-oper- 
ation in Christian work. This principle, which 
they introduced into American history, that the 
church Is voluntary and independent of the state, 
has been slowly but effectually wrought into our 
national life till it has finally prevailed In all Protes- 
tant denominations. 

It was not to be expected that methods of church 
organization and worship which had met with such 
fierce persecution In England would be adopted in 
the new colony without opposition both from among 
its own members and from Its supporters In the 
mother country. Two brothers named Brown, one 
a lawyer and the other a merchant, attempted to start 
another congregation at Salem, In which the Book of 
Common Prayer was used and the ceremonies of the 
Church of England were observed. Perhaps If they 
had been content with worshiping God In their own 
way and had refrained from criticising the new depar- 
ture in church order they would have been let alone. 
But they felt impelled to testify against the new order 
so persistently as to threaten faction and division. 
Having been summoned before the governor, they 
charged the ministers with being Separatists, and 
declared their own purpose to maintain worship ac- 
cording to the order of the Church of England. The 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. IO9 

ministers had not yet realized to what extent these 
charges were true. They replied that they did not 
separate from the Church of England, but only from 
its corruptions and disorders ; that being in a place 
where they might have liberty, they would not use 
the Prayer Book nor the ceremonies of the English 
Church, because they believed these things to be 
sinful corruptions. To them Episcopacy meant the 
tyranny of Archbishop Laud and of the Court of 
High Commission. 

The answer of the ministers, in the opinion of the 
governor and his council, and of the people generally, 
was sufficient. Governor Endecott sent the Browns 
back to England. Their influence there did something 
to promote disturbance among the supporters of the 
colony, who wrote letters expressing their dissatisfac- 
tion and urging the colonists to stop their innovations 
on established church order and to repent of them. 
But these admonitions do not seem to have had much 
effect. Those New England Puritans had begun to 
be conscious of their independence in a new land, and 
to forecast the character of the commonwealth whose 
foundations they were laying. 

There has been much debate as to whether this first 
Congregational church organized in America had a 
distinct confession of faith, or whether that was 
included with the covenant in one document. The 
latter seems much more probable, but there need be 
no question as to the doctrinal belief of the Salem 
church. The doctrines held by the Puritans, thor- 
oughly Calvinistic, agreed with those of the Church of 
England so entirely that there was no need at the first 
for them to be formally set forth. 



no 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



Yet the church allowed its members reasonable 
liberty in interpreting its creed and covenant. 
Nathaniel Morton, writing forty years later of the 
beginning of the Salem church, says : *'The confession 
of faith and covenant was acknowledged only as a direc- 
tion, pointing unto 
that faith and cov- 
enant contained in 
the Holy Scrip- 
ture; and therefore 
no man was con- 
fined unto that 
form of words, but 
only to the sub- 
stance, end and 
scope of the matter 
contained therein." 
While the steps 
were being taken 
by which Salem 
church was organ- 
ized, events of 
great importance 
to the New World 
were taking place 
in England. The increasing severity with which per- 
secutions of Puritans were pressed, forced many men of 
prominence seriously to consider emigration to America. 
Many among these were connected with the Massachu- 
setts Company ; a number of whom, whose names are 
now familiar in New England history, entered into a 
covenant to emigrate to the colony, provided the 
charter and patent of the company could be legally 




FIRST MEETING HOUSE OF THE FIRST PROTESTANT 
CHURCH ORGANIZED IN AMERICA, SALEM, MASS., 
BUILT 1634. 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. Ill 

carried thither. This brought matters to a crisis, and 
the company voted in August, 1629, to make the 
transfer. Matthew Cradock, the Governor, and other 
officers who could not leave England, resigned, and 
John Winthrop was chosen governor of the company. 
He was then forty-one years old, of prominent family, 
had been a student at Cambridge University, and a 
lawyer for a number of years. His name is one of 
the most illustrious in early New England annals. 
Domestic bereavements had strengthened his character 
and enriched his piety. He was a man of remarkable 
courage, persistence and patience, with a rare com- 
bination of the qualities needed in the leader of the 
infant colony. 

The first company to start for New England in the 
spring of 1630, under the impulse of this new turn of 
affairs, was organized in Dorchester, England, under 
the guidance of John White. Its members formed 
themselves into a church by covenant at Ply- 
mouth just before sailing, and chose John Warham 
and John Maverick to be their ministers. Mr. War- 
ham was a clergyman of the Established Church, 
living at Exeter. The organization was completed in 
the New Hospital with a day of fasting and prayer 
and preaching by Mr. White. This church landed at 
Nantasket May 30 and soon settled at Mattapan. 
The settlers called the place Dorchester, after the 
name of the English town which had been the home of 
many of them. 

In June Winthrop arrived at Salem in the ''Ara- 
bella" with three other vessels, and most of the 
remainder of his fleet came to land before July 5. He 
found the settlement weakened by sickness, discour- 



112 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

agement and death, with scanty provisions, and in 
great fear of the Indians. Salem did not appear to 
be a suitable location for the capital of the colony. 
The fleet went to Charlestown, where a settle- 
ment had already begun, under Governor Endecott's 
direction, and there in tents, booths and cottages, 
many of the settlers began their new life. With the 
company had come two ministers, John Wilson and 
George Phillips, who held services on Sabbaths and 
preached under a tree which served as their meeting 
place. 

July 8, the fleet having all arrived, was observed 
throughout the plantations as a day of thanksgiving. 
But severe sickness soon visited Charlestown, prob- 
ably owing to the hardships of the voyage, exhaust- 
ing the energies of the less robust. Governor 
Winthrop asked advice of the church in Salem. 
Messrs. Fuller, Allerton and Winslow were there at 
the time on a visit from Plymouth and their advice 
was also asked. It was agreed to set apart July 30 
as a day of fasting and prayer. The three settle- 
ments into which Winthrop's company had divided 
were invited, with Salem, to observe the day, and 
Winslow and Fuller wrote to Plymouth that ^'they 
do earnestly entreat that the Church of Plymouth 
would set apart the same day for the same ends, 
beseeching the Lord, as to withdraw His hand of cor- 
rection from them, so also to establish and direct them 
in His ways." Thus early, even in advance of church 
organizations, were the people of the colonies drawn 
together in the common sympathies of a common faith. 

On the appointed day John Winthrop, Isaac John- 
son, Thomas Dudley and John Wilson, the four 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. II3 

most prominent persons in the Charlestown commu- 
nity, entered into this simple covenant with God and 
with one another, thus forming a Christian church : 

'* In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, & in 
Obedience to His holy will & Divine Ordinaunce, 

'* Wee whose names are herevnder written, being by 
His most wise, & good Providence brought together 
into this part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts, 
& desirous to vnite ourselves into one Congregation, 
or Church, vnder the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, 
in such sort as becometh all those whom He hath 
Redeemed, & Sanctifyed to Himself e, do hereby sol- 
emnly, and religiously (as in His most holy Proesence) 
Promisse, and bind o^'selves, to w^alke in all our wayes 
according to the Rule of the Gospell, & in all sincere 
Conformity to His holy Ordinaunces, & in mutuall 
love, & respect each to other, so neere as God shall 
give vs grace." 

The same day a church was formed at Watertown, 
about forty persons subscribing their names to a cov- 
enant. They chose George Phillips to be their 
minister. 

The first general court was held at Charlestown, 
August 23, when John Winthrop was elected governor 
of the colony, although he held the position of gov- 
ernor of the corporation by the appointment he 
had received before leaving England. The people 
already began to exercise their privileges as freemen. 
The court also agreed to provide houses for the min- 
isters at Charlestown and Watertown, and to pay 
to Mr. Phillips a salary of thirty pounds. Mr. Wilson 
was voted a salary of twenty pounds a year till 
his wife should come over from Enoland. Four 



114 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

days later the church at Charlestown, which had largely 
increased in numbers, observed a day of fasting and 
prayer, and formally chose John Wilson to be their 
teacher, Increase Nowell ruling elder, and William 
Gager and William xA.spinwall deacons. These officers 
were duly installed by the laying on of hands. 

The sickness on account of which the people had 
set apart a day of fasting and prayer in July did not 
abate. Many of the wives of prominent men died, 
including the wife of George Phillips and the Lady 
Arabella, wife of Isaac Johnson and daughter of 
the Earl of Lincoln. That autumn two hundred 
persons succumbed to disease. When the ships re- 
turned to England, more than one hundred discour- 
aged persons, among whom were many hired serv- 
ants, returned in them. Some who were not in 
sympathy with the aims of the colony left for the settle- 
ment at the mouth of the Pascataqua River, where 
they had heard that there were people more to their 
liking. But the withdrawals were mostly of those 
who would have hindered more than they would have 
helped the new settlements. 

Before long the supply of fresh water in Charlestown 
ran low. Only one spring could be found there, and 
that was inaccessible at high tide. Across the river 
at a place called Shawmut, was a fine spring of run- 
ning water. William Blackstone, a Puritan clergyman, 
had been living there for some years. He had 
brought with him to this country a valuable library, 
and enjoyed study in solitude and the cultivation 
of his garden. On his invitation the governor and 
some of the leading men moved thither. In a little 
while their minister settled on that side of the river 



\ 

THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. II5 

and Sabbath services began to be held there, which the 
Charlestown brethren attended. The new settlement 
was called Boston, from the Lincolnshire town in 
England which had been the home of some of the 
settlers. 

Boston was not at first fixed on for the capital. A 
town was laid out for that purpose where Cambridge 
now is, and it was named Newtown. The governor 
began to build there. Deputy Governor Dudley 
finished his house at Newtown and removed to it with 
his family, But the finger of destiny was pointing all 
the time to Boston as the metropolis of New England, 
and the governing powers finally acknowledged the 
fact. In the autumn of 1631 Governor Winthrop 
fixed his residence in Boston, and the work of building 
up the town was vigorously carried on. 

During the three years following the arrival of Gov- 
ernor Winthrop and his large company in Massachu- 
setts Bay the immigrants were few. Sad reports of 
the mortality that prevailed that first autumn, and evil 
reports from those who had gone back to England in 
discouragement, or had been sent home because of 
misdemeanors, kept back immigration. In 163 1 only 
about ninety persons arrived, and the next year only 
about two hundred and fiftv. This was to the advan- 
tage of the new colony, which needed time for its 
citizens to become acquainted with one another and 
with their new surroundings and to settle the affairs 
of government by themselves. 

For about two years the Charlestown people went 
across the river to Boston to attend public worship. 
But in the autumn of 1632 enough people had arrived 
to warrant a new organization. The church at Boston 



Il6 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

formally dismissed thirty-five of its members who lived 
in Charlestown, and these persons organized themselves 
into a church, November 23 of that year. They 
elected and installed Thomas James as their pastor, who 
had arrived from England a short time before, and not 
long after appointed a ruling elder and two deacons. 

By the end of the year 1632, just twelve years after 
the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, seven churches 
had planted themselves around Massachusetts Bay, 
while to the church of Plymouth two others had been 
added in that colony, at Marshfield and Scituate. 
These seven churches were organized in the following 
order: Salem, 1629; Dorchester, Boston (at Charles- 
town) and Watertown, 1630; Lynn, Roxbury and 
Charlestown, 1632. Under the leadership of an 
admirable governor, with statesmanlike associates, the 
foundations of a body politic had been securely laid. 
With unstinted self-sacrifice, high religious aims, a pro- 
found faith in God, these families in the wilderness 
had begun to feel the influences of civil and religious 
freedom In a community generally united In belief and 
purpose, and to mold the state In accordance with 
those influences. Already the great Republic was 
born ; and although almost a century and a half was 
to pass away before It would attain to its majority, it 
was even then settled that the twin forces of gov- 
ernment would be free churches on one hand, and 
free civil institutions on the other, mutually inde- 
pendent yet mutually supporting each other in their 
efforts to realize the divine ideal of man In soci- 
ety. Our fathers had to work out these ideas of 
government through discipline and trial. They had 
to learn the meaning of ecclesiastical and civil freedom 



THE PURITANS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. II/ 

by experiment, not without mistakes, not altogether 
without intolerance on their part. But they wrought, 
perhaps, without graver errors in the light of their 
time than those into which their descendants have 
fallen, and with a prophetic purpose which has been 
nobly realized and for which we owe them a great 
debt. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 

I^HE first churches formed by the Puritans In the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony had, as we have seen, 
no intention of separating themselves from the Church 
of England. Their pastors and teachers did not in 
general renounce their Episcopal ordination. They 
meant only to free themselves from the corruptions of 
the church which had persecuted them, and caused 
them to leave their homes to found a nation in the 
wilderness of the New World. 

But the principles which controlled these Puritans, 
separated from the immediate domination of the Eng- 
lish church and state, would inevitably issue in Con- 
gregational churches and a republican government. 
Those seven churches which had been formed in the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony before the spring of 1633^ 
as well as the three which had been planted in the 
Plymouth Colony, were in effect independent. Each 
had originated in a voluntary covenant, had chosen 
and placed in office its own officers and was adminis- 
tering its own affairs. They had, however, united with 
one another in mutual councils. We are now to trace 
the working out of these ideas of the sufficiency of the 
local church and of the union of such churches in fel- 
lowship, without authority over one another, till the 
polity they represented came to be known as Ameri- 
can Congregationalism. The providential guidance 

Ii8 




JOHN WINTHROP. 



i 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 1 19 

which led to that result appears especially in the 
men who became the leaders in New England, in the 
exigencies at home which shaped the faith and polity 
of the churches and made declarations of that faith 
and polity necessary, and in the influences from 
England. 

Those who stood for godly living in England against 
the corruptions of the church and the state were of 
the right sort to lay solid foundations of free common- 
wealths. They had exalted ideas of public welfare, 
and for it in God's name they were ready to make any 
sacrifices. They were no mere enthusiasts. With 
them sound learning went hand in hand with holy pur- 
poses. Never was another colony planted whose early 
settlers included so large a proportion of men of liberal 
education. Many of the choicest sons of Cambridge 
and Oxford universities, especially the former, were 
among these emigrants. There was at least one 
graduate from these institutions to every two hundred 
planters. In the twenty years following the landing 
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, seventy-seven ministers 
and sixteen theological students came with the other 
immigrants to New England, about one to every one 
hundred and twenty-five persons. Their coming indi- 
cates the character of those who came with them. 
When John Cotton was considering the question of 
leaving England, his inclination to go was strengthened 
by the opinion of an elderly minister whom he con- 
sulted, "that the removing of a minister was like the 
draining of a fish-pond : the good fish will follow the 
water, but eels and other baggage fish will stick in 
the mud." 

No man has left a broader and deeper impress of 



I20 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

character on New England life than this same John 
Cotton. He came to this country in the full flush of 
his powers, at the age of forty-eight, arriving in Boston 
September 4, 1633. From being a brilliant scholar at 
Cambridge and a fellow of Emanuel College, he had 
gone to be for twenty years the rector of the congrega- 
tion worshiping In the most magnificent parish church 
in England, St. Botolph's, at Boston. At last he had 
been silenced for his nonconformity and had fled to the 
new Boston, where he was welcomed as a great acces- 
sion to the ministry of the colony. In the same ship 
with Cotton came two other ministers, Thomas Hooker 
and Samuel Stone. Hooker was also in middle life, 
having been born in England in 1586 in the little 
hamlet of Marfleld, Leicestershire. He too, like his 
college friend Cotton, who was one year his senior in 
age, was a graduate of Cambridge and a fellow of 
Emanuel College. He had been a popular and influ- 
ential preacher in England, whose views were much to 
the distaste of Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. But 
it had been well said of his spirit and courage as a 
minister, " He was a person who, while doing his 
Master's work, would put a king in his pocket." He 
had been silenced, however, and had taken to keeping 
a private school at Little Baddow, about thirty miles 
from London. It is chiefly memorable because into 
that school came as a student John Eliot, afterward a 
missionary to the American Indians ; and Eliot says 
of his experience in that " blessed family," " Here the 
Lord said unto my dead soul, live ; and through the 
grace of Christ I do live and shall live forever!" 

But it was not possible to check the influence of 
Thomas Hooker in England as long as he himself 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 121 

remained in that kingdom. One of his enemies 
wrote of him to Dr. Duck, Laud's chancellor: "His 
genius will still haunt all the pulpits in the country 
where any of his scholars may be admitted to preach 
. . . I have lived in Essex to see many changes, 
and have seen the people idolizing many new minis- 
ters and lecturers, but this man . . . gains more 
and far greater followers than all before him." Hooker 
was driven out of England, and went to Holland in 
1630, where he soon found hearers and became 
acquainted with Hugh Peter, later known as the 
minister of Salem. While Hooker was in Holland 
many of his followers found their way to Massachu- 
setts Bay, and among them John Eliot. They were so 
numerous that they were known about Boston as ^' Mr. 
Hooker's Company." Thither Hooker followed them, 
bringing with him many more of his loyal friends. 

Samuel Stone, also a graduate of Emanuel, had had, 
on the recommendation of Thomas Shepard, of the 
same college, and four years Stone's junior, an appoint- 
ment as Puritan lecturer at Towcester, in Northamp- 
tonshire. He was only thirty-one years old when he 
accepted the invitation of " the judicious Christians 
that were coming to New England with Mr. Hooker," 
to join them as Hooker's assistant. The Puritans of 
Massachusetts, who had a greater fund of humor than 
has usually been credited to them, used to say that the 
ship in which these three men sailed for New England 
brought to this country ** three great necessities : 
Cotton for their clothing. Hooker for their fishing, and 
Stone for their building." With them also came 
John Haynes, afterward governor of the colony. 

These ministers, of matured convictions, large schol- 



122 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

arship and experience as popular religious leaders, 
joined others who were their peers in the young 
colony, where the experiment of free churches in a 
free state was to be worked out by men still under the 
influence of the English Church and English mon- 
archy, and nominally, at least, under their control. 
What would these Englishmen create for their spir- 
itual and temporal government with such materials, 
when separated for conscience' sake from old associa- 
tions in a new land ? No more interesting problem 
appears In history than that which these men worked 
out, whose result is seen in this great Republic of the 
United States of America, leavened but not ruled by 
free churches of Jesus Christ. Whoever would insist 
on judging the efforts of the men of those early years, 
when the problem was being courageously and labori- 
ously wrought out, by the standards which have now 
at length resulted from those labors, is deficient In 
historic sense. Even through mistakes which our 
fathers made and suffered from, always aiming at that 
liberty which is our glory, we have come into the 
inheritance of the institutions for which they labored 
and prayed, "having seen them and greeted them 
from afar, and having confessed that they were stran- 
gers and pilgrims on the earth." 

John Cotton was promptly called to be teacher of the 
church In Boston, John Wilson, their first teacher, hav- 
ing been chosen to the office of pastor ; and on the loth 
of October, Cotton having accepted the call, was set 
apart by the laying on of hands, with a prayer of the 
pastor and elders of the church. Neighboring pastors, 
being present, gave him the right hand of fellowship. 
Mr. Cotton's ideas of church government must have 



\ 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 123 

changed considerably since he had left England ; for 
before he left, he wrote to Mr. Skelton at Salem, com- 
plaining because Skelton had refused to baptize the 
child of Mr. Coddington, for the reason that he had not 
united with any particular " Reformed Church," al- 
though he was a member of the Church of England. 
Yet Mr. Cotton at his installation stated that he had 
not been willing to baptize his own child Seaborn, born 
during the voyage, because they had no settled congre- 
gation on the ship, and " because a minister has no 
power to give the seals but in his own congregation." 
Mr. Cotton already had come to believe that the minis- 
terial office was identical with the pastorate of a par- 
ticular church. The next day after Mr. Cotton's settle- 
ment at Boston, Mr. Hooker was chosen pastor and 
Mr. Stone teacher at Newtown, which was soon after 
called Cambridge, the church probably having been 
already organized. At any rate a meeting house had 
been erected the previous year with a bell on it. 

By this time the population of the towns and planta- 
tions of the Bay was at least three thousand, and there 
were thirteen or fourteen ministers, who had been 
eminent clergymen of the Church of England. New- 
town had about one hundred families, all of whom were 
of Mr. Hooker's congregation. It was a thrifty and 
pleasant community, and its people, like those of the 
neighboring towns, were conscientious, intelligent, 
religious and Puritan in character. But Boston had 
already been fixed on as the seat of government, and 
Mr. Cotton speedily acquired large influence there. 
It was said of him, that ''whatever he delivered in the 
pulpit was soon put into an order of court, if of a civil, 
or set up as a practice In the church, if of an ecclesias- 



124 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

tical, concernment." Cotton leaned toward aristocracy 
in government, both in church and state. Not long 
after his arrival here, he wrote to Lord Say and Sele : 
*' Democracy I do not conceive that God ever did 
ordain as a fit government either for church or com- 
monwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be 
the governed ?" He preached a sermon at the first 
Court of Elections after he came to Boston, in May, 
1634, to show ''that a magistrate ought not to be 
turned into the condition of a private man without just 
cause ; " and Governor Winthrop also favored that 
view. It took practical form two years later in the 
action of the General Court establishing a Standing 
Council, to consist of *' a certain number of magistrates 
for the term of their lives," with authority to exercise 
powers " out of court," such as the Legislature might 
give them. Hooker was democratic in his tendencies, 
and naturally these views were distasteful to him. The 
historian Hubbard says of him ** After his coming it 
was observed that many of the freemen [men on whom 
were conferred the rights of citizenship] grew to be 
very jealous of their liberties." The sturdy independ- 
ence of these freemen soon asserted itself against the 
permanent tenure of office, and against the formation 
of any ruling class in society. But the struggle 
between the principles of aristocracy and democracy 
was constantly going on, in which these two ministers 
took prominent part with opposing views which finally 
led to the departure of Mr. Hooker and his followers 
to plant a new colony in the Connecticut Valley, 

As early as 1631 the General Court had decided that 
'' no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body 
politic, but such as are members of some of the churches 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 1 25 

within the limits of the same." EngHsh law would 
have required as much, but the English Church would 
have made all the people members of it by baptism. 
The Massachusetts churches would admit no one to 
membership except those who were regarded as regen- 
erate souls. Four years later the General Court decided 
that no new churches should be formed without the 
consent of the civil magistrates and the elders of the 
churches. Thus were fostered both theocratic and aris- 
tocratic tendencies in government, in which of course 
the ministers would have great influence. Soon after 
Mr. Cotton's arrival a semi-monthly ministers' meeting 
was established, at which " some question of moment 
was debated." Some, among them Mr. Skelton of 
Salem, objected to this organization, as Winthrop says, 
" fearing it might grow in time to a presbytery or super- 
intendency, to the prejudice of the churches' liberties." 
But the majority of the ministers favored and main- 
tained it. Thursday lectures by the ministers were 
soon established in Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury and 
Newtown. They included a wide range of subjects, 
and sometimes provoked opposition. At one of them 
in Boston, when Mr. Cotton had spoken against the 
necessity of women wearing veils in church, Mr. Ende- 
cott, who was present, disputed with him till the discus- 
sion became so hot between them that Governor Win- 
throp interposed. 

Mr. Hooker appears to have looked with some 
apprehension on the limiting of authority in govern- 
ment to the church members or to the educated classes. 
He replied to a defense by Governor Winthrop of 
restriction of suffrage by saying, "In matters which 
concern the common good a general council chosen by 



126 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

all to transact businesses which concern all, I conceive 
most suitable to rule and most safe for relief for the 
whole." Hooker had many followers, especially in 
Newtown, Watertown and Dorchester, which as early 
as 1633 organized town governments, with selectmen. 

While Cotton and his associates were on their 
voyage from England to America, William Laud was 
made Archbishop of Canterbury in England, and he 
promptly placed himself at the head of a special 
commission to control English colonial affairs. This 
he followed by a summons to the Massachusetts Bay 
Company to return its charter. In the perplexity 
which followed this summons the magistrates of the 
colony called together the ministers and asked their 
counsel on this question : *' What ought we to do if a 
general governor should be sent out to us from Eng- 
land?" The ministers replied, ''We ought not to 
accept him, but defend our lawful possessions if we 
are able ; otherwise to avoid or protract." This inci- 
dent illustrates the perils to which the colony was 
exposed from the interference of the home govern- 
ment, and also the influence of the ministers over the 
colonial magistrates. 

This incident will help also to explain an episode which 
properly finds mention at this point, which has greater 
civil than religious significance. Roger Williams was 
a young minister who had come over from England 
in 1 63 1, and had been employed for a short time by the 
church in Salem against the remonstrances of the magis- 
trates. The next year he was preaching in Plymouth, 
but on the death of Mr. Skelton in 1634 he became the 
sole minister of the Salem church. As a conscientious 
disturber of the peace, he stands unsurpassed in New 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 12/ 

England history. He managed to urge important 
truths with such an interweaving of dangerous errors 
that he stirred up wrangles wherever he went. He 
proclaimed the principle of religious toleration in 
advance of his time, and he seems to have had a 
sweetness of temper which never gav.e away before the 
righteous wrath which he everywhere aroused. The 
evils he inflicted on others he intended to be for 
their useful discipline, and he repeatedly returned 
kindness for the punishment they inflicted on him. 
He denounced King James as a liar, and King 
Charles, then on the throne of England, as an unclean 
spirit and a wanton, applying to him some of the most 
objectionable passages in the Book of Revelation ; and 
there was enough of truth in these assertions to make 
them dangerous. He attacked the precious charter 
of Massachusetts and declared it worthless, saying that 
the people were unjustly usurping the possessions of 
the Indians. These things were enough to put the 
peace of the colony in peril and even its very existence 
should his words be reported, as they were likely to 
be, in England. But he found ways to come even 
closer home to the sensibilities of the colonists. He 
tried to influence the political action of the General 
Court by persuading his church to ask other churches 
to discipline those of their members w^ho as town 
representatives would not vote to allow a petition of 
Salem to receive a grant of public land. When these 
churches did not act on this request, he tried to per- 
suade the Salem church to withdraw fellowship from 
them. When that church would not do as he desired 
he withdrew his fellowship from it, and when his wife 
continued to attend the church he withdrew fellowship 



128 GONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

from her and refused to pray in the family in her 
presence. Besides all these proceedings he would not 
become a freeman of the colony, and tried in his pulpit 
to persuade others to decline to take the oath of 
allegiance to the government. 

It was simply a matter of self-protection, and not at 
all a theological question, which led the General Court 
to summon Mr. Williams before it for trial ; and, when 
he persisted in maintaining his opinions, to order him 
to leave the colony within six weeks. This action was 
taken in October, 1635. But being given a respite till 
the next spring, he made so much mischief during the 
winter that a military guard was sent to Salem in 
January to bring him to Boston and put him on board 
a ship bound for England. Being seasonably warned, 
however, by Governor Winthrop, he escaped to Narra- 
gansett Bay, and in the summer of 1636 began a settle- 
ment at Providence. 

Meanwhile Mr. Hooker and his friends had been, 
almost from the time of his arrival, looking about for 
some region where they could plant a colony for them- 
selves. In the summer of 1634 they sent a pioneer 
party of six persons to Connecticut ; and the fall meet- 
ing of the General Court was largely occupied with the 
discussion concerning the request of the people of 
Newtown to remove to Connecticut. The court or- 
dered a day of fasting and prayer to seek guidance of 
the Lord on the matter, and the Newtown people were 
finally persuaded to accept more land in the neighbor- 
hood of Watertown and what is now Newton; ''and 
so the fear of their removal to Connecticut was 
removed." 

Their departure, however, was only delayed. There 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 



129 



seem to be good reasons for believing that Mr. Hooker 
preferred more democratic Ideas of government, both 
In the church and the state, than those which prevailed 
in the Massachusetts colony ; and that many others 
agreed with him. In I 

the spring of 1635 
the court gave per- 
mission to companies 
in Dorchester and 
Watertown to re- 
move to Connec- 
ticut. Those who 
went endured great 
hardships the ensu- 
ing winter. But the 
tidings of their suffer- 
ings did not deter 
the Newtown church 
from following them. 
Early in 1636, a con- 
siderable company i 
having arrived from 
England, Mr. Hook- 
er's people were able 
to sell their houses 
to these newcomers. 
Another church in 
Newtown was organized February i. with Thomas 
Shepard as pastor ; and by the last of May, the New- 
town pilgrims, about one hundred In number, were on 
their journey. It was a toilsome way through a path- 
less wilderness, over mountains and across unbridged 
rivers, with only a compass for a guide. Mrs. Hooker, 




:^-o 



MEETING-HOUSE OF FIRST CHURCH, HARTFORD, 
CONN. ERECTED 1807. 



I30 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

being an Invalid, was carried on a litter. They were 
about a fortnight on the way ; but they all came safely 
at last to the place on the Connecticut River where 
they began their settlement, which they called Hart- 
ford, in remembrance of Mr. Stone's native town in 
England. The church which emigrated from Dor- 
chester settled at Windsor, under the leadership of its 
minister, John Warham. This exodus from the three 
Massachusetts towns, which resulted In the plant- 
incr of the three orlo^Inal river towns of Connecticut — 
Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield — took away from 
Massachusetts about one-quarter of her strength. Yet 
such was the value which these Puritans of Massachu- 
setts Bay placed on education that in this year of trial 
the General Court appropriated four hundred pounds 
for the beginning of a college at Newtown, and the 
name of that place, in honor of the fact, was changed 
to Cambridge. 

It is quite possible that the fellowship of the New 
England churches was saved too severe a test In this 
early period of their history by this exodus to Connec- 
ticut. But other exigencies were soon to arise which 
would call for more definite statements than the churches 
had yet given, both of their faith and their polity. 
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson had been a parishioner and an 
admirer of Mr. Cotton in England. She was a woman 
of ambition and Influence, of attractive manners and 
not wanting in self-confidence. She regarded herself 
as peculiarly qualified to instruct others In religion. 
She believed that she was favored with special revela- 
tions from God. Soon after Mr. Cotton left for New 
England she said : '* It was revealed to me that I must 
go thither also." Her husband, Winthrop says, was 




131 



132 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

" a man of very mild temper and weak parts, wholly 
guided by his wife." In these facts are all the 
materials needed for a lively church disturbance. 
Mrs. Hutchinson, on her arrival in Boston, promptly 
sought admission into Mr. Cotton's church. Some 
question of her orthodoxy arose at her examination, 
but she was received November 2, 1634. She soon 
began to hold weekly meetings at her own house. 
These appear to have been a kind of Bible readings, 
but especially she made them occasions for repeating 
and explaining to her hearers the substance of Mr. 
Cotton's sermons. 

Mrs. Hutchinson's meetings soon became popular, 
the most prominent people of the town attending 
them. The next autumn after her arrival young Sir 
Henry Vane came to Boston, and was welcomed as a 
great addition to its society. He became a disciple of 
Mrs. Hutchinson. Mr. Cotton was captivated by 
her. In May, 1636, Vane was chosen Governor. 
Mrs. Hutchinson's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, 
supported her views, and therefore met with her 
approval. But Mr. Cotton's colleague, Mr. Wilson, 
Governor Winthrop, Hugh Peter, who had come to 
be pastor of the Salem church, and a number of others, 
were proof against her persuasive powers. These, 
and indeed all who did not accept her views, she 
declared to be under " a covenant of works," while she 
and her followers were under "a covenant of grace." 
She extolled Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wheelwright, but the 
other ministers she regarded as unfit to preach. She 
believed that those enlightened directly by the Spirit, 
as she was, could preach better than the " black 
coats" from the " ninniversity "---epithets which seem 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 1 33 

to need no other evidence of their feminine origin. 
Mr. Wilson became so unpopular that, when he rose 
to preach, a large part of the congregation would leave 
the house. Mrs. Hutchinson taught that those who 
were under the covenant of grace had an immediate 
disclosure from the Holy Spirit that they were saved ; 
that they had or could have revelations from heaven ; 
and that the evidence of their salvation lay in the 
revelation to them of the fact, and not in any evidence 
of improvement in moral character. These views, 
Winthrop says, had ''many branches." Probably Mrs. 
Hutchinson herself was not able to make all of them 
very clear either to her own mind or to the minds of 
her followers. But she succeeded in bringing the 
churches of the entire colony into turmoil. The 
Boston church came very near division, with Mr. 
Cotton leading one faction and Mr. Wilson the 
other. 

January 19, 1637, was observed as a day of fasting 
and prayer in view of these dissensions, and Mr. 
Wheelwright preached a sermon for which the court 
found him guilty of sedition. On account of the ex- 
citement in Boston the next Court of Elections, May 
17, was held at Cambridge, the views of Mrs. Hutch- 
inson being the sole issue in the campaign. The 
feeling was so intense that physical violence was hardly 
avoided. Mr. Wilson, in his eagerness to be heard, 
climbed a tree and used it as a pulpit from which to 
address the voters assembled in the field. The anti- 
Hutchinsonians triumphed. Vane was not re-elected 
governor, and soon afterward returned to England. 
Winthrop was chosen in his place. 

Before autumn the excitement had somewhat abated, 



134 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

though another day of humiliation and prayer had 
been observed on account of the trouble, Mr. Hooker 
had been from the first opposed to the Hutchinson- 
ians. In April he had written to Winthrop : '* I did 
rejoice from the root of my heart that the Lord did 
and hath graciously kept you from the taint of those 
new-coined conceits." Thomas Shepard of Newtown 
heartily sympathized with Hooker, who had now 
become his father-in-law; and most of the ministers 
outside of Boston agreed with them. The final 
settlement of the matter being vital to the peace of 
the colony, the General Court convened at Cambridge 
the first general council or synod held in New England. 
It consisted of "all the teaching elders through the 
country" and of "messengers from the churches," 
"about twenty-five godly ministers of Christ besides 
many other graciously eminent servants of His." The 
assembly met August 30, and continued in session over 
three weeks. Peter Bulkeley of Concord and Thomas 
Hooker of Hartford were chosen moderators. The 
debates were very earnest, especially as many things 
said must have reflected rather severely on Mr. Cotton. 
** Solemn speeches were made with tears," says Cotton 
Mather, " lamenting that they should in this im- 
portant matter dissent from a person so venerable 
and considerable In the country." In Its result the 
council stated and condemned eighty-two erroneous 
opinions, and nine unwholesome expressions, be- 
sides specifying many texts of Scripture which 
had been abused. Mr. Cotton would not sign the 
result, but he seems to have at last accepted it, with 
qualifications. The council unanimously decided that 
meetings of women In which one woman undertook to 



EARLY AMERICAN CONGREGATIONATJSM. 1 35 

teach doctrines were disorderly ; that disputes in the 
pubHc assembly after sermon by private members were 
unjustifiable ; that members refusing to answer the 
summons of the church might be proceeded against, 
though absent ; and that members disagreeing with 
their own churches in matters of doctrine should not 
be granted letters of dismission to other churches. 

The government paid the traveling and other ex- 
penses incident to the assembly, and Governor Win- 
throp was so pleased with its results that he proposed 
that meetings should be held annually. This proposal 
was favorably regarded but not acted on. The good 
sense of the ministers saved them from such a step 
toward Presbyterianism, and doubtless the jealousy of 
the people toward permanent ecclesiastical assemblies 
helped them to refrain from establishing such a body. 

The dissensions, however, did not end Avith the 
dissolution of the council. Mr. Wheelwright kept on 
preaching the opinions which had been condemned. 
Alienations continued in families and between neigh- 
bors. The court in October summoned Mr. Wheel- 
wright and questioned him. He dared them to pro- 
ceed. Finally the court pronounced sentence of ban- 
ishment against him and Mrs. Hutchinson, and a 
number of prominent citizens who sympathized with 
them were fined and disarmed. Mrs. Hutchinson re- 
mained in the colony till spring, when she was tried by 
the Boston church and excommunicated. She went to 
Rhode Island and Mr. Wheelwright to Pascataqua. 
Five years later she and all her household except one 
child were massacred by the Mohawk Indians. Her 
career was a trying one, both to the civil government 
of the colony and to the churches. But one cannot 



136 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

withhold admiration for her ability, respect for her 
earnestness and sympathy for her misfortunes. When 
the tide of popular favor turned against her she was 
undoubtedly treated with undue severity, which even 
the precarious state of the colony could only partly 
excuse. 




JOHN DAVENPORT. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. 

THE Hutchinson troubles brought unfortunate re- 
sults to the Massachusetts colony in various ways. 
While they were at their height in the summer of 1637 
John Davenport, an intimate friend of Mr. Cotton, 
came over from England with a wealthy gentleman, 
Theophilus Eaton, and two shiploads of emigrants. 
How far they were influenced by these troubles against 
remaining in Massachusetts is uncertain. But they 
were in full sympathy with the prevailing views of the 
colony concerning government, and it had been ex- 
pected that they would join it. However, the next 
spring they went to the northern shore of Long Island 
Sound, and founded at Quinnipiack the New Haven 
colony. The news of the religious and political dis- 
turbances in Boston was also carried back to England 
and probably hindered further emigration to New Eng- 
land. Cotton sent word to the English Puritans 
early in that year " that all the strife among us is 
about magnifying the grace of God . . . and that if 
there are any among them that would strive for grace 
they should come hither." 

But though the tidings of the dissensions hindered 
the coming of the desired Immigrants, they caused 
anxious Inquiries from the old country concerning the 
belief of the New England churches and the princi- 
ples and methods by which they were governed. In 

13/ 



138 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

1637 came ''a letter from many ministers In Old Eng- 
land " making Inquiry concerning '' nine positions," 
relating to the use of a liturgy, admission to the sac- 
raments, church membership, excommunication and 
ministerial standing. About the same time also the 
English Puritans sent to New England '' thirty-two 
questions," concerning the whole field of church polity. 
They asked about the way churches were organized, 
the settlement of ministers, lay preaching, the powers 
of synods and councils. These inquiries brought forth 
from New England ministers answers, to which again 
the English ministers made rejoinders ; and during 
the years from 1636 to 1648 an extensive literature was 
produced which helped to settle and define the princi- 
ples of Congregationalism. ' 

John Cotton was a prolific writer on these topics, in 
various treatises printed in England, of which the most 
noted was entitled, '* The Keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven." Richard Mather of Dorchester wrote an 
elaborate reply to the thirty-two questions, which, 
though it was entirely his own production, the min- 
isters generally approved. The views of the time were 
those of Barrowe rather than those of Browne. While 
they placed governing power entirely in the local church 
they made the ruling elders practically the church so far 
as government was concerned. The New England minis- 
ters held that the will of Christ must rule the church ; but 
that in case of difference of opinion the elders, and not 
the majority of the members, should interpret Christ's 
will. They held that the whole church had a voice In 
its government In that the members, by their silence, 
could give assent to the judgment of the elders ; and 
that if any should dissent, they should be labored with 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I39 

to change their judgment. If such labor failed they 
were to be admonished as factious and as a final resort 
their votes nullified. The ministers denied that this 
was an aristocracy, and tried to persuade themselves 
that it was a wise middle way between Presbyterianism 
and Brownism. But it was after all, as Samuel Stone 
of Hartford said, "A speaking aristocracy in the face 
of a silent democracy." 

Meanwhile the course of Puritanism in Old England 
was different from that in New England. Especially 
the Puritans in New England emphasized the suffi- 
ciency of the local church, while in Old England the 
tendency increased toward Presbyterianism, giving the 
authority into the hands of ministers and representa- 
tives of the churches in presbyteries and synods. 
The Westminster Assembly, called by Parliament in 
1643 without the approval of the king, became the 
more surely Presbyterian because the Episcopalians 
who were loyal to the king refused to attend it. From 
New England Messrs. Cotton, Hooker and Davenport 
received an invitation to "assist in the synod," from 
Lord Say and Sele, Cromwell and some thirty other 
minority members of Parliament. Cotton and Daven- 
port were inclined to accept the invitation, but 
Hooker opposed accepting, and his view prevailed, 
being re-enforced by letters from English friends. It 
was evident that the views of Congregationalists would 
be rejected there. Though there were some ten mem- 
bers of the assembly during its sessions who " stood for 
independency," they were a hopeless minority. Yet 
these Congregationalists commanded the respect of the 
assembly and were the peers of its ablest members. 

But the preparations in England for that assembly 



I40 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

gave new Interest to the discussions in New England 
concerning Presbyterianism. Some of the ministers 
favored its principles ; especially Thomas Parker and 
James Noyes, pastor and teacher of the church at 
Newbury. To prevent the spread of the dissensions 
which were arising at Newbury from this cause, a 
convention was held in Newtown, by that time called 
Cambridge, in September, 1643. It included all the 
ministers in the country, about fifty, and such of the 
ruling elders as desired to attend. Cotton of Massa- 
chusetts and Hooker of Connecticut were moderators. 
This meeting made no formal deliverance, but disap- 
proved of some features of Presbyterianism, and pre- 
sented its reasons for so doing to the Newbury 
brethren. The convention maintained that the votes of 
the church members were necessary in admitting and ex- 
communicating persons ; that those were not fit mem- 
bers who practiced known sins or neglected known 
duty; that stated conferences of the churches were 
necessary ; that in each particular church the power 
should usually be exercised by the elders ; and that the 
parish churches in England, where all who had been 
baptized were counted as members, could not be right 
without a renewal of the covenant, including only those 
who joined in it. These opinions seem to have had 
little weight with the Newbury ministers, for the 
trouble in their church continued. 

In England many books were coming from the 
press on the subject of Presbyterianism, some of 
them directly criticising the New England church 
polity. One of these, Professor Samuel Rutherford's 
*' Due Right of Presbyteries," the New England Con- 
gregationalists thought should be answered. Replies 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I4I 

were written by Mr. Davenport on *' The Power of 
Congregational Churches," and by Mr. Hooker, '' A 
Survey of the Sum of Church DiscipHne." These 
manuscripts were examined and approved by a general 
meeting of ministers at Cambridge, July, 1645, but the 
ship in which they were sent to England to be printed 
was never heard from after leaving port. Hooker 
reluctantly rewrote his *' Survey," but it was not pub- 
lished till after his death. In the preface is a summary 
of principles, which so clearly represents the Congre- 
gational polity that it is hereunder reproduced. It 
is only needful to make comments on two points. 
Hooker's assertion that there ought to be no ordina- 
tion of a minister at large no longer stands for Con- 
gregational usage. By consociations and synods he 
means simply advisory councils. Hooker's summary is 
as follows : 

** If the Reader shall demand how far this way of 
church-proceeding receives approbation by any com- 
mon concurrence amongst us : I shall plainly and 
punctually express myself in a word of truth, in these 
following points, viz. 

'' Visible saints are the only true and meet matter, 
whereof a visible church should be gathered, and 
confederation Is the form. 

** The church as totuin essentiale, is, and may be, 
before officers. 

''There Is no Presbyterlall church (J. e., a church 
made up of the elders of many Congregations ap- 
pointed classickwlse, to rule all those Congregations) 
in the New Testament. 

'* A church Congregational is the first subject of the 
keys. 



142 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

*' Each congregation completely constituted of all 
officers, hath sufficient power in herself, to exercise 
the power of the keys and all church discipline, in all 
the censures thereof. 

'' Ordination is not before election. 

" There ought to be no ordination of a minister at 
large, namely, such as should make him pastor without 
a people. 

'' The election of the people hath an instrumental 
causal virtue under Christ, to give an outward call 
unto an officer. 

" Ordination is only a solemn installing of an officer 
into the office, unto which he was formerly called. 

'' Children of such, who are members of congrega- 
tions, ought only to be baptized. 

" The consent of the people gives a causal virtue to 
the completing of the sentence of excommunication. 

'* Whilst the church remains a true church of 
Christ, it doth not lose this power, nor can it lawfully 
be taken awav. 

" Consociation of churches should be used, as occa- 
sion doth require. 

'* Such consociations and synods have allowance to 
counsel and admonish other churches, as the case 
may require. 

'* And if they grow obstinate in error or sinful mis- 
carriages, they should renounce the right hand of 
fellowship with them. 

" But they have no power to excommunicate. 

"■ Nor do their constitutions bind formaliter & 
juridice. 

But the *' New England way" of church government 
thus simply described met with continued opposition, 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I43 

as well from political as from religious reasons. Some, 
like Messrs. Parker and Noyes of Newbury, conscien- 
tiously preferred Presbyterianism. Others sought 
such changes in church polity as would aid them to 
gain the rights of citizenship. The limitation of the 
franchise to church members deprived the larger por- 
tion of the people of any active share in the gov- 
ernment. Out of the fifteen thousand persons in 
the Massachusetts colony in 1643, only one thousand 
seven hundred and eight had become citizens, and 
many of these had removed to Connecticut. In the 
Plymouth colony, although the ecclesiastical test was 
not applied, the restrictions were so great that out of 
three thousand persons only two hundred and thirty 
had the right to vote. Local causes of irritation also 
strengthened the feeling of discontent with ecclesias- 
tical authority which seemed to some to savor of 
tyranny. A conflict arose in 1645 between a party in 
the church at Hingham and the General Court over 
the appointment of a captain of militia. An attempt 
was made, led by the minister, Peter Hobart, to 
excommunicate from the church Captain Eames, of 
whom the soldiery wished to be rid. This act would 
have deprived him of citizenship. Governor Win- 
throp and some of the magistrates took the part of 
Eames, and the case occupied the attention for a 
considerable time both of the Leg^islature and the 
ministers. Governor Winthrop, having been accused 
of exceeding his powers because he fined and committed 
to jail some of the Hingham citizens, was tried by the 
General Court and acquitted. The ministers censured 
Mr. Hobart and upheld the magistrates. Hobart was 
heavily fined, but he had many sympathizers, who, 



144 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

with him, were regarded by the party in power as 
unpatriotic and seditious because they talked of ap- 
pealing to the English Parliament from what they 
claimed were unauthorized acts of the colonial govern- 
ment. Such an appeal was finally made as the result 
of a movement begun by one of Mr. Hobart's neigh- 
bors, William Vassall. A memorial was prepared to 
be sent to Parliament, complaining that freeborn sub- 
jects of England residing in the colony were denied 
their liberties because their consciences would not 
permit them to enter into the church covenants. 
While this memorial was bei^ng prepared, seven persons 
of some prominence presented the same statements 
in substance to the General Court of Massachusetts, 
giving formal notice that they would appeal to Parlia- 
ment unless the court should grant their request. 
Eventually the court declared that no appeal from its 
proceedings could be allowed, while acknowledging 
that the colony owed allegiance to the authorities in 
England. It thus practically asserted the independ- 
ence of the colonies, which one hundred and forty 
years later was formally affirmed in the Declaration of 
Independence. But the court denied the reasonable 
petition, and punished the men who made it with 
imprisonment and heavy fines. 

These disturbances aroused afresh the sensitiveness 
of both magistrates and people to the constant danger 
to which their government was exposed by appeals to 
English authorities. To guard against that danger it 
was important that the constitution of the churches, and 
the conditions of admission to them by which men 
might also become freemen, should be clearly defined. 
The Assembly, now known as the Westminster, then 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I45 

in session, suggested a way in which this could be done. 
Some of the ministers of the Massachusetts colony 
requested the General Court at its meeting in May, 
1646, to pass an act which they had drawn up, summon- 
ing the churches to assemble by their representatives in 
a synod for the purpose of agreeing on a uniform prac- 
tice in all the churches. The magistrates passed the 
act, but some of the deputies objected that civil magis- 
trates had not the authority to command the churches to 
determine what should be uniform practice, nor to com- 
pel them to adopt what the synod should decide. The 
act was therefore modified so that the court requested, 
instead of commanding the churches to convene ; and 
it was explained that the synod was called only to 
present counsel from the Word of God, which the 
court would be at liberty to accept or reject according 
as they should see cause. The act was then passed 
by both branches of the court. 

The call mentioned the fact that there were differ- 
ences of opinion and practice among the churches, 
especially directing attention to questions concerning 
church membership and the baptism of children of 
non-communicants ; and expressed the desire of the 
court '* that there be a public assembly of the elders 
and other messengers of the several churches within 
this jurisdiction, who may come together and meet at 
Cambridge upon the first day of September, now next 
ensuing ; there to discuss, dispute and clear up by the 
Word of God such questions of church government 
and discipline in the things afore mentioned, or any 
other, as they shall think needful and meet, and to 
continue so doing till they, or the major part of them, 
shall have agreed and consented upon one form of 



146 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

government and discipline, for the main and sub- 
stantial parts thereof, as that which they judge agree- 
able to the Holy Scriptures." 

When the synod met in Cambridge, September i, 
it was found that all the churches of Massachusetts 
colony were represented except four. The minister at 
Concord was unable to be present. The HIngham 
church, of course, would not be represented. But the 
churches of Boston and Salem made serious objections, 
not overcome without diligent efforts, occupying sev- 
eral days ; and in the case of Boston, though dele- 
gates were finally sent, a considerable minority of 
the church protested. However, the synod as organ- 
ized had the support of all, except one, of the twenty- 
nine churches of Massachusetts, the two churches in 
New Hampshire, and the approval of the twenty-two 
churches of Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, 
some of whom were represented by their ministers or 
delegates. The two weeks of the first session were 
largely taken up with discussions concerning the 
authority of the civil magistrates in religious matters, 
and concerning the nature of powers of a synod. John 
Cotton, Richard Mather and Ralph Partridge, the last 
named being minister at Duxbury, were appointed each 
to prepare a " model of church government " for consid- 
eration at the next meeting, and the synod adjourned 
to June 8, 1647. The session which met on that date 
was a brief one, because of an epidemic which caused 
the death of many people, among whom were Governor 
Winthrop's wife and Mr. Hooker of Hartford. 

Meanwhile affairs in England were rapidly drifting 
toward revolution, and it was becoming evident that 
influences were gaining ascendency which would favor 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. 147 

New England. Presbyterianism had arrayed itself 
against the army and in defense of the king. The 
army was largely composed of Independents, who 
heartily favored what were the essential principles of 
New England Congregationalism. About the time of 
the second session of the Cambridge Synod, in June, 
1647, the army by force gained possession of the 
king's person, and the Independents came into power 
in Parliament. When this news arrived in New 
England it was plain that the danger to which her 
institutions had been exposed from the mother country 
had ceased, at least for that time. Questions concerning 
the conditions of citizenship were no longer of chief im- 
portance, for the laws of Massachusetts were not now 
likely to be taken up for revision in England. These 
matters were left to be solved by the New England 
churches half a generation later. The attention of the 
synod was therefore turned, more prominently than it 
would otherwise have been, to matters of doctrine. 

The Westminster Assembly had by this time pre- 
pared a confession of faith, a few copies of which had 
been printed under charge of secrecy ; but it was not 
yet adopted by Parliament, and there was reason to 
fear that it might not be acceptable to Congregation- 
alists in New England. The General Court there- 
fore requested the American Synod to adopt a con- 
fession of faith, and that Messrs. Norris of Salem, 
Cotton of Boston, Mather of Dorchester, Rogers 
and Norton of Ipswich, Shepard of 'Cambridge, 
and Cobbett of Lynn, should each prepare a state- 
ment of belief, to be considered by the synod at 
its next session. 

This, the final session, opened at Cambridge August 



148 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

15, 1648. By that time Parliament had adopted and 
published the Westminster Assembly's Confession of 
Faith ; and the synod unanimously voted concerning 
the doctrinal part of it that they '* do judge it to be 
very hol}^ orthodox, and judicious in all matters of 
faith ; and do therefore freely and fully consent there- 
unto, for the substance thereof." The synod adopted 
substantially the Platform of Church Discipline which 
had been drawn up by Richard Mather. It contains 
seventeen chapters, and includes much which had been 
previously written on the subject of church govern- 
ment by himself and Mr. Cotton. It begins with an 
extended preface by Mr. Cotton, answering various 
criticisms and explaining certain practices of the New 
England churches and defending their orthodoxy. 
The first four chapters declare that there Is only one 
form of church government prescribed In the Word 
of God, and that that is Congregational. The fifth 
says that the power of the church Is In the elders, 
but that the brethren elect the elders. The sixth 
affirms that there are only two orders of ordinary 
officers In the churches, elders — who are either pastors, 
teachers, or ruling elders — and deacons. The seventh 
explains the duties of ruling elders and deacons. The 
eighth shows how officers are to be chosen ; the ninth, 
the manner of their ordination and Its meaning ; and 
the tenth gives In detail the powers of the elders and 
the brethren respectively and their relations to each 
other In church government. The eleventh refers to 
the financial support of church officers, the twelfth, 
thirteenth and fourteenth to reception, dismission, cen- 
sure and excommunication of members. The fifteenth 
explains the fellowship of the churches, and the six- 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I49 

teenth the nature of synods and proper methods of call- 
ing them. The seventeenth affirms that church officers 
may not intermeddle with the civil government nor 
magistrates with the business of the churches ; but that 
the magistrates should punish idolatry, blasphemy, 
heresy, and the venting of corrupt and pernicious 
opinions. 

The Platform was duly printed, and was presented 
to the General Court at its autumn session, in 1649. 
The court referred it to the churches, requesting them 
to express their opinion as to its appropriateness. In 
165 1 the court presented to the ministers in due form 
the objections which it had received to the Platform, 
asking their advice. The ministers appointed Rich- 
ard Mather to answer these criticisms, approved the 
statement he prepared and presented it to the Gen- 
eral Court, which in October, 1651, formally voted con- 
cerning the Book of Discipline, ''that for the substance 
thereof it is what we have practiced, and do believe." 

This Platform is the most important document pro- 
duced by the Congregationalists of the seventeenth 
century, for it most clearly represents the belief of the 
churches and their system of government for more than 
one hundred years. It was indeed the legally recognized 
standard till 1780. In its description of ruling elders 
and their duties, and of the distinction between pastors 
and, teachers, each being a minister of the church, in 
its definition of the official position of ministers not in 
charge of churches, and in various minor matters, It has 
become obsolete ; but It still largely represents the 
fundamental principles of the faith and polity of Con- 
gregational churches. 

It is not within our province in this work to trace 



150 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the civil history of the colonies except as it is directly 
connected with that of the churches. But it should 
never be forgotten that we owe more to the ministers 
of New England of those early days than to any other 
men for our democratic system of government, and for 
our laws, which are founded on the principles of the 
Mosaic legislation. The " Body of Liberties," which 
was the earliest written code of Massachusetts, adopted 
by the General Court in 1641, was drawn up by Nathan- 
iel Ward, minister of Ipswich, who had practiced in the 
courts of common law in England. The first consti- 
tution of Connecticut, adopted in 1639, was largely the 
work of Thomas Hooker, and was the first written 
constitution in history which resulted in a civil govern- 
ment. Our present national government is in direct 
descent from that formed on this constitution, which 
marked the beginning of democracy. Connecticut 
made to Massachusetts the first propositions which 
resulted in the confederacy of the New England col- 
onies, and in this movement also the hand of Mr. 
Hooker is conspicuous. Congregationalism has been 
a potent factor in establishing the principles of this 
first of great republics. 

The simple picture of the public worship of those 
early days will fitly close this chapter. The Sunday 
morning service began about nine o'clock, the audience 
usually having been called together by ringing a bell, 
beating a drum, blowing a horn or hoisting a flag. 
The ruling elders sat in front of the pulpit on a raised 
seat, and the deacons a little lower down, both facing 
the congregation. The men sat on one side of the 
house, and the women on the other, while the children 
had also a place by themselves and were kept in order 



THE CAMBRIDGE SYNOD. I51 

by a tithlngman with a long rod. The pastor opened 
with prayer for about fifteen minutes, the teacher read 
and explained the Scriptures and a ruling elder then 
lined off a Psalm, usually from the Bay Psalm-Book, 
which was sune. There were not more than ten tunes 
in use before the year 1700. The pastor then preached 
for an hour or more, and the teacher concluded the 
service with prayer and benediction. In the afternoon 
the service was similar except that the teacher and pas- 
tor usually exchanged places. In many churches where 
there was but one minister, the morning sermon was 
devoted to the argument, as it was called, and the after- 
noon sermon to the application. 

There was ordinarily a mid-week service, either 
including a sermon, or a conference of the brethren on 
some topic previously announced. The ministers did 
not solemnize marriages, nor was there any ceremony 
at funerals. The congregations stood during public 
prayer. In these and other ways they continued for 
many years their protest against Roman Catholic cus- 
toms and modes of worship, witnessing even in their 
most simple forms as in their most solemn services to 
their independence of priestly rule, and to their sense 
of the immediate responsibility of each and every soul 
to God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 



THE Puritans left England In order that they might 
maintain in New England a state and churches in 
accordance with their views of right and duty. When, 
then, the persecution of Puritans ceased in England 
with the assembling of the Long Parliament, in 1640, 
immigration ceased also. ** The change," wrote Gov- 
ernor WInthrop, ''made all men to stay in England in 
expectation of a new world." During the eleven years, 
1629-40, about twenty-one thousand persons came to 
New England. From that time, for a century and 
a half the immigration was slight, and the increase of 
the New England population was almost entirely from 
the descendants of these immigrants. At the end of the 
eighteenth century, ninety-eight in every one hundred 
of the inhabitants were of pure English descent. 

In 1643 the four colonies, Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Connecticut and New Haven, entered into a confedera- 
tion for more efficient self-defense, under the name of 
*' The United Colonies of New England " ; New Hamp- 
shire having, in 1641, come under the Massachusetts 
government. Of the twenty-six thousand white people 
in New England, twenty-four thousand were in these 
colonies, fifteen thousand being in Massachusetts and 
about three thousand in each of the others. The 
remaining two thousand were mostly scattered along 

152 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 1 53 

the coasts of the territory now inchided in Rhode 
Island and Maine. In this entire region there were 
about fifty towns and forty churches. 

Plymouth, the oldest colony, had been less flourish- 
ing than the others, though, after its earlier difficulties 
were in a measure overcome, it attained respectable 
prosperity. For the first nine years the church at 
Plymouth had no pastor, though regular public worship 
was maintained ; William Brewster, as ruling elder, 
.taking the place of a pastor. Ralph Smith, a good 
man, but without great gifts as a preacher, occupied 
that position from 1629 to 1636. He was followed 
by John Reyner, who served the church as teacher 
till 1654. The church was then without pastor or 
teacher for fifteen years, though frequent efforts were 
made, with many days of fasting and prayer, to fill the 
vacant place. Its numbers were few, and were lessened 
by removals from time to time, so that they could not 
offer sufficient support for the maintenance of a per- 
manent minister. In 1666, when John Cotton, Jr., was 
called to the pastorate, there were only forty-seven 
resident members. 

Duxbury, on the north side of the bay, was the 
first offshoot from Plymouth, in 1632, though its first 
pastor, Ralph Partridge, was not settled till 1637. 
Marshfield came next, being set off with great reluc- 
tance by the mother church. Edward Winslow was 
one of its original members. In September, 1634, 
John Lothrop arrived at Scituate with about thirty 
people of whom he had been pastor, as successor 
of Henry Jacob, in the church at Southwark, Lon- 
don. That church was organized in 16 16. Mr. 
Lothrop had endured severe persecutions in England, 



154 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

including imprisonment. He had been set free after 
much suffering, on condition that he would leave the 
country. He was acquainted with some of the people 
from Kent, England, who had settled in Scituate, and 
for that reason, probably, decided to unite his fortune 
with theirs. Mr. Lothrop's company, with thirteen 
persons dismissed from Plymouth, organized a church 
at Scituate by joining in a covenant, January 8, 1635, 
and he was chosen pastor. But its first years were 
stormy, chiefly because of differences of opinion on the 
subject of baptism, some of its members advocating 
immersion. In consequence the majority of the 
church, with permission of the General Court, re- 
moved in a body with the pastor and formed a settle- 
ment at Barnstable, in 1639, while those who remained 
at Scituate organized a new church. It was no more 
united than was the former organization before the ma- 
jority withdrew. In 1641, it called Charles Chauncey to 
be Its pastor and he accepted, though his coming was 
opposed by a large minority who, the next year, organ- 
ized a new church, which they claimed to be the first, 
on the ground that Mr. Chauncey and his followers 
had not kept their covenant. The controversy was 
long continued. Indeed, divisions between the 
churches of Plymouth colony have not altogether 
ceased even to this day. 

Miss Elizabeth Poole, with one or more ministers 
and a considerable company, emigrated from Taunton, 
England, and settled in the wilderness of Titicut, about 
twenty-six miles from Plymouth, In 1637. They named 
their new settlement Taunton. There a churcli was 
organized about the end of that year, with William 
Hooke as Its pastor, and Nicholas Street, teacher. 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 1 55 

Both were ordained by members of the church ap- 
pointed for that purpose. Churches were also formed 
at Yarmouth In 1639, ^"^ ^^ Sandwich in 1640. Some 
of the churches of the colony were quite prosperous. 
Cotton Mather says that in the year 1642 they had 
altogether '' above a dozen ministers," some of whom 
were "stars of the first magnitude." But their early 
history soon became clouded by doctrinal disagree- 
ments, to whose consequences the same author refers 
as the ''hour of temptation, wherein the fondness of 
the people for the prophesyings of the brethren pro- 
duced those disagreements unto their ministers, that 
almost all the ministers left the colony." At the 
time of its union with Massachusetts under a new 
charter, in 1692, Plymouth colony contained seven- 
teen towns. In all except three of these towns, 
Congregational churches had been formed. 

The growth of the churches of Massachusetts 
colony has been described in preceding chapters. 
These churches, up to 1640, were organized in the 
y following order: Salem, 1629; Dorchester, Boston, 
Watertown, 1630; Lynn, Roxbury, Charlestown, 1632 ; 
Cambridge, 1633; Ipswich, 1634; Newbury, Wey- 
mouth, Hingham, Cambridge 2d, 1635 ; Concord, 
Dorchester 2d, 1636 ; Dedham, Salisbury, 1638 ; 
Quincy, Rowley, 1639; Sudbury, 1640. 

The Connecticut colony began by the immigration 
of the first churches of Dorchester and Cambridge, 
which settled at Windsor and Hartford. A company 
also went about the same time from Watertown, of 
whom six or seven took letters of dismission to form 
a new church. This company settled at Wethersfield. 
In the autumn of 1635 about twenty men from Eng- 



156 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

land, with John WInthrop, Jr., son of Governor 
Winthrop, built a fort at the mouth of the Con- 
necticut River, and called the place Saybrook, in honor 
of two of the persons, Lord Say and Sele, and Lord 
Brook, who held the patent for land covering- the 
whole territory of what is now the State of Connecti- 
cut. John Higginson, son of the first Salem pastor, 
was the minister of the garrison. This settlement 
became incorporated with Connecticut in 1644. 

The New Haven colony, under the lead of John 
Davenport, with Samuel Eaton, arrived at Quinni- 
piack, and kept their first Sabbath there April 18, 
1638. They set apart a day for fasting and prayer 
and adopted a Plantation Covenant, agreeing to be 
** ordered by the rules which the Scriptures held 
forth to them." June 4, the planters came together 
in a barn, and Mr. Davenport preached from Prov- 
erbs XI. I, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she 
hath hewn out her seven pillars." He argued that 
the church should be founded with seven principal 
men, to which others should be added. Twelve men 
were appointed to choose from their number the seven 
pillars. In August the choice was made and the 
church organized. October 25 the seven pillars, who 
were called The Court, formed the Body of Freemen, 
to which all the members of the church were admitted. 
A governor and other officers of the new colony were 
duly chosen, and thus a church-commonwealth was 
begun. A church was also formed at New Haven on 
the same general plan, which in the following February 
settled at Milford. Its members were mostly per- 
sons from Wethersfield. Peter Prudden was ordained 
pastor. In 1640 land was purchased at Guilford, 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 1 57 

where a church was organized by seven pillars in 
1643. Henry Whitfield was there received as pastor 
without being ordained, since he had brought with 
him from England a considerable part of the church. 
His house is still standing and is one of the old- 
est in the United States. John Higginson, from 
Saybrook, was chosen teacher. A church was organ- 
ized at Stratford in 1640, and in Fairfield in 1650, 
though at the latter place John Jones, an Oxford 
scholar, had been preaching since 1639. In 1665, 
when the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut 
were united under a new charter from Charles H., 
they included fifteen churches, all Congregational, 
with about twenty ministers. The population at that 
time was somewhat over eight thousand, making about 
one minister to every one hundred families. 

New Hampshire was first settled under the leader- 
ship of two members of the Plymouth Council, Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. These 
two men, having associated with them several English 
merchants, sent out two colonies in 1623, one of which 
located at Little Harbor, now Rye, at the mouth of the 
Pascataqua River. The other party went eight miles 
further up the river and began to build at Dover. But 
though much money was spent and many skilled work- 
men from England from time to time joined these 
colonies, the elements of power which were fitted to 
conquer the difficulties of the new country were not 
among them, and for a number of years the efforts 
made resulted in successive failures. 

It was not till 1633 that any minister appeared 
among them. In that year a number of families from 
the west of England, of ''good estates and of some 



158 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



account for religion," arrived at Dover under the 
auspices of Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brook, 
bringing with them William Leverlch, a Cambridge 
graduate and an able Puritan minister. But the 
support given him was so meager that in about two 
years he left the place, and was succeeded by a 

shrewd but unprin- 
cipled adventurer, 
George Burdett. 
He did what he 
could to prejudice 
people in England 
against the Massa- 
chusetts colonists, 
especially in cor- 
respondence with 
Archbishop Laud, 
and finally suc- 
ceeded in becom- 
ing governor of the 
plantation. But be- 
ing detected in im- 
moralities he was 
compelled to leave 
Dover, and finally, having entered the royalist army, he 
was captured, and ended his career in an English prison. 
After Burdett left Dover, Hanserd Knollys, for- 
merly a very learned school-teacher in Gainesborough, 
England, came and organized the first church In that 
town in December, 1638. He had a short and stormy 
pastorate. But in 1641 he went to London, where he 
organized a Baptist Church, and lived to the great age 
of ninety-three years. Neale says he was " universally 




HANSERD KNOLLYS, FIRST MINISTER OF 
FIRST CHURCH, DOVER, N. H. 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 159 

esteemed and beloved by all his brethren " in Eng- 
land. Thomas Larkam drove Knollys out of the 
pastorate at Dover and succeeded him. He was of 
brilliant parts, but he proved a sad though short-lived 
misfit. The dispute was practically between Knollys 
the Puritan, and Larkam, the defender of the prac- 
tices of the Church of England. In 1643 Daniel 
Maud, a graduate of Emanuel College, Cambridge, 
followed Larkam, having left the leadership of the 
Boston Latin School for that purpose, and had a suc- 
cessful pastorate of thirteen years. He was followed 
in 1655 by John Reyner, who came from eighteen 
years' service at Plymouth. Not far from 1639 appears 
a church at Hampton, on lands taken possession of 
by Massachusetts in 1636. Stephen Bachelor was 
pastor, and after about a year was joined by Tim- 
othy Dalton as teacher. This is the only instance 
in New Hampshire where a pastor and teacher were at 
the same time laboring in one parish. The arrange- 
ment worked badly, the church and town being divided 
into two factions, one led by the pastor and the other 
by the teacher. Mr. Dalton's party were in the 
majority, and Mr. Bachelor left the town about 1641, 
though the contentions continued for a long time after- 
ward. Mr. Dalton remained with the church till his 
death in 1661. 

John Wheelwright, Mrs. Hutchinson's brother- 
in-law, when he was banished from Massachusetts, 
settled at Exeter in 1638 with a number of sympa" 
thizers, and the following year organized there a 
church of nine members. But three years later this 
plantation, with Dover and Portsmouth, was incor- 
porated with the Massachusetts colony ; and as Mr. 



l6o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Wheelwright, being still under sentence of banish- 
ment, was compelled to leave the jurisdiction, the 
church was at once broken up. In 1644 the people 
tried to organize a church, but the General Court 
forbade them to do it. Later they had Samuel Dud- 
ley as their minister for thirty-three years, but no 
church was formed there till 1698. 

At Portsmouth no provision was made for public 
worship till 1640, and no church was organized till 
1671, though a minister was resident there a consid- 
erable part of the intervening time ; and Joshua 
Moody, the first pastor of the church, was the minis- 
ter of Portsmouth by vote of the town from 1658. 
He continued pastor till 1684, when he was imprisoned 
and finally banished from the province by the arbitrary 
authority of Lieutenant Governor Cranfield. He was 
invited in that year to the presidency of Harvard 
College, but did not accept. He returned to Ports- 
mouth after Cranfield retired from office, and died 
there in 1697. A church was formed at Nashua in 
1675, but that town was then supposed to be in 
Massachusetts. No other churches were organized in 
New Hampshire before the end of the seventeenth 
century. 

The first attempt at a settlement in Maine was made 
in 1607 by a company of one hundred and twenty per- 
sons, led by Captain George Popham, a brother of 
Lord Chief Justice Popham of England, and Ralegh 
Gilbert, a nephew of Sir Walter Ralegh. They 
landed at St. George's Island, where the first sermon 
ever preached in New England was delivered August 
9, 1607. They formed a settlement at the mouth of 
the Kennebec River, but the colonists were not suited 




i6i 



l62 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

to endure the hardships of life In the wilderness, and 
the next year the enterprise was abandoned. Probably 
no permanent settlement was made on the Maine coast 
before 1622. From that time on several fishing and 
trading communities were established at the island of 
Monhegan, at Saco, and several other points. But 
the people for a long time organized neither schools 
nor churches. This coast seems to have been a kind 
of dumping ground for people who could not endure 
the rigid discipline of Massachusetts. 

The charter of the Province of Maine, given by 
Charles I. in 1639, required that the established 
church should be the Church of England, but It does 
not appear that any Episcopal church was planted 
there, though Richard Gibson, an Episcopal cler- 
gyman, appears to have officiated In several planta- 
tions between 1636 and 1642. During those years 
also several ministers from Massachusetts visited dif- 
ferent points in Maine, and there seems to have been 
stated preaching for a time at Agamentlcus, which is 
now York. Yet It Is probable that the church in that 
town now generally regarded as the oldest in the 
State was not formed till 1673. When Mr. Wheel- 
wright left Hampton, N. H., he went to the Province 
of Maine, and in 1643 ^^^^ out the town of Wells. It 
is probable that he organized a church there, though 
no distinct record of It remains. The church which 
now exists there was formed about 1701. 

Thomas Jenner was probably the first Congre- 
gational minister at Saco, where he remained from 
1 641 to 1646. But there was no great prosperity In 
the Maine settlements till they came under the govern- 
ment of Massachusetts about 1653. After that time 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 1 63 

the towns were required to maintain public worship 
and to support ministers If they were able. But there 
was little Congregationalism In Maine till after the end 
of the seventeenth century. 

Rhode Island gathered to Itself the religious fanatics 
who were banished from Massachusetts. The first of 
these was Roger Williams, who settled at Providence 
in 1636. He there founded the first Baptist church 
in America in March, 1638, nearly three years after 
his arrival there. The church consisted of twelve 
members. One of them, Ezekiel Holman, first 
immersed Mr. Williams, who then immersed Mr. 
Holman and the others. Within four months, how- 
ever, Williams left the church with three others, and 
renounced its baptism and ministry. A few years 
later the church divided over the question whether or 
not hands should be laid on the heads of newly 
baptized persons. There could not have been much 
enthusiasm among them for public worship, for no 
meeting house was built by them before the end of the 
century. 

When Mrs. Hutchinson was banished from Mas- 
sachusetts she intended joining her brother-in-law, Mr. 
Wheelwright, at Exeter, but for some unknown reason 
turned her footsteps toward Rhode Island. Her com- 
pany Included sixteen persons, led by Mr. John Clarke, 
who had been a London physician, and who had been 
disarmed in Boston as an antlnomian. They settled 
first at Pocasset, but early in 1639 the colony removed 
to Newport, where they organized a Congregational 
church. Dr. Clarke officiated as minister, expecting 
that Mr. Wheelwright would come to be their pastor. 
However, Wheelwright did not seem to be in full 



164 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

sympathy witli tlieir peculiar views, and in 1640 they 
secured the services of Robert Lenthall. Samuel 
Gorton was one of Mrs. Hutchinson's earliest sym- 
pathizers there, a man of honorable character, but by 
temperament a constant fomenter of strife. He soon 
managed to create a schism among Mrs. Hutchinson's 
followers, and made, his way into Roger Williams' 
territory, who describes him as ''bewitching and mad- 
ding poor Providence." The disturbances he stirred 
up among the Indians and in. Massachusetts colony 
do not claim place here, but they would serve to illus- 
trate the reasons why no very friendly relations existed 
between the churches of Massachusetts and the church 
at Newport. After three or four years Dr. Clarke and 
several others with him became Baptists, and the 
church seems to have disbanded. 

The oldest Congregational church in Rhode Island 
is probably that at Barrington, organized in 1670. 
Another church was formed at Bristol in 1687. The 
next was at Little Compton in 1 704. 

Long Island early attracted the attention of New 
Englanders. In 1640 a company from Lynn and 
Ipswich, having obtained a grant of land on the Island 
from Lord Stirling, and having made an agreement 
with the Indians, settled at Southampton. The emi- 
grants had already organized a church before leav- 
ing Lynn, and secured Abraham Pierson as their 
pastor. In the same year also Southold was settled, 
the church having been gathered at New Haven 
with John Young as pastor. Other settlements on 
the Island with Congregational churches were made 
between 1640 and 1660 at Hempstead, East Hampton, 
Newton, Crookhaven, Jamaica and one or two other 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 165 

places. Some of these churches remained Congrega- 
tional for a long time, that at Southold for nearly two 
hundred years ; but they finally united with Presbytery. 

Congregationalism in the days of the early English 
settlements of the Atlantic Coast had a foothold at 
many points, stretching across the island groups also. 
In 1624 Henry_ Jacob, founder of the first perma- K 
nent Congregational church In London, was called to 
setdejn Virginia, but died sqonL after his arrival. In 
1642 letters signed by seventy-one persons were 
received at Boston from Nansemond County, Virginia, 
asking for ministers, and saying that there were three 
parishes in Virginia ready to receive pastors from New 
England. Great interest was excited, and three minis- 
ters were selected to go as missionaries. They were 
cordially received, but were forbidden to preach 
because the Church of England was the established 
church of the colony. The people met, however, in 
private houses, and a Congregational church was 
formed, which in a few years numbered one hundred 
and eighteen communicants. But, their pastor hav- 
ing been banished, and later the entire body, they 
removed to Maryland, near where now stands the city 
of Annapolis, and named their settlement Providence. 
There the church finally became extinct. 

Congregationalists were scattered, in considerable 
numbers, among the early settlers of the island groups 
to the southeast of the mainland of North America ; 
and a church was organized on one of the Bermuda 
islands, another at New Providence, and a third on the 
island of Barbadoes ; but the surroundings were not 
favorable to their growth, and in a few years they dis- 
appeared. 



l66 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Most remarkable of all, in these early years of 
growth and expansion, were the efforts made to Chris- 
tianize the Indians. This purpose was prominent among 
the plans both of the Pilgrims and the Puritans when 
they first came to New England. But the unexpected 
difficulties encountered in planting homes and forming 
governments in the wilderness, and in putting into prac- 
tice the New Testament polity of the churches, for a 
time held their missionary zeal in check. Perhaps, 
also, they found the savages of the New World less 
open to the gospel message than they had expected. 
Yet at no time were they Indifferent to the spiritual 
welfare of the natives. They were, in general, scrupu- 
lously honest in their business transactions with them. 
They welcomed gratefully such signs as appeared that 
some of the Indians were interested in the Christian 
religion. Bradford recorded with much satisfaction 
that Squanto, near his death, would have the governor 
pray " that he might go to the Englishman's God in 
heaven," and that Hobbomok left " some good hopes 
In their hearts that his soul went to rest." Indian boys 
and girls were received Into families as servants and 
were taught the simple facts of the Christian religion. 
Some of them attended public worship and seemed 
to be impressed by what they heard. 

In 1644, when the people began to have leisure to 
consider other matters than those which had been of 
pressing necessity to the preservation of their own 
existence, the General Court of Massachusetts passed 
an. act Instructing the county courts to take measures 
to civilize the Indians and instruct them *' in the knowl- 
edge and worship of God," and counseling the elders 
of the churches to consider how ''to bring the natives 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 167 

to the knowledge of God and His ways." In 1646 the 
General Court ordered that the elders should annually 
appoint two ministers as missionaries to the Indians 
with the consent of their churches, and that an allow- 
ance should be made to them for this work by the 
court. But already, the week before this order was 
passed, John Eliot had made his first attempt to preach 
to the Indians. He had been for fourteen years the 
honored teacher of the church at Roxbury, and had 
for some time, with a native interpreter, been studying 
the Indian language. 

His first sermon to the Indians was preached In 
a hut on the Charles River, near Watertown, October 
28, 1646. It lasted an hour and a quarter, and was 
followed by a number of questions from his audience, 
which he and three friends with him answered, also 
asking questions of the Indians. The service closed 
with prayer, after which Eliot gave the children some 
apples and the men some tobacco. The work thus 
begun was continued with practical and wise efforts 
both to convert and to civilize the natives. Plans were 
soon put into operation to bring them into compact 
settlements, to train them to Industrial habits In farm- 
ing and in simple mechanical arts, and to gather their 
children into schools. The ministers became greatly 
interested in the work. Henry Dunster, president 
of Harvard College, gave earnest attention to It. 
The General Court co-operated by making arrange- 
ments for the purchase of land for the Indians on 
which they might live together In an orderly way, and 
by voting a gratuity to Mr. Eliot. The subject was 
discussed with great Interest at the meetings of the 
Cambridge Synod. Requests came to Mr. Eliot from 



l68 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Indians in various sections of the country, urging him 
to come and preach to them. He went among them 
on missionary journeys, to Concord, to "a. great fish- 
ing place on one of the falls of the Merrimac," to 
'' remote places about Cape Cod," westward to Brook- 
field, and everywhere found some who were eager for 
instruction. 

About the same time Thomas Mayhew and his son, 
having gone from Watertown to Martha's Vineyard, 
became much interested in preaching to the Indians 
there. One of the natives, Hiacoomes, became a 
preacher to his own people. In 1650, the, younger 
Mayhew wrote, "There are now by the grace of God, 
thirty-nine Indian men of this meeting, besides women 
that are looking this way, which we suppose to exceed 
the number of the men." 

Tidings of this work created great interest in Eng- 
land, where accounts of it were published by Edward 
Winslow, then in London. Parliament passed an act 
** for the promoting and propagating of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ in New England." A corporation, which 
might not inappropriately have been called a Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, was appointed, 
with authority to hold property, and a general collec- 
tion for this work was ordered in all the parishes of 
England and Wales. Mr. Winslow's services were of 
great value in this movement. Within seven years 
about seventeen hundred pounds were remitted to 
New England for this missionary work. Messrs. Eliot 
and Mayhew were each paid a salary of fifty pounds. 
A number of persons, both whites and natives, were 
employed as their assistants. Several young Indians 
were selected to be educated at Harvard as mission- 



GROWTH AND EXPANSION. 169 

arles to their own race. Notwithstanding much oppo- 
sition, especially from chiefs of the Indian tribes, and 
some criticism from Englishmen, the work grew 
steadily under Mr. Eliot's indefatigable leadership. 
He organized, in 1650, an Indian community at Natick, 
with a simple scheme of government ; the Indians, as 
the white people had done, entering with solemn cere- 
monies " into covenant with God and each other to be 
the Lord's people, and to be governed by the Word of 
the Lord in all things." A similar community was 
gathered at Ponkapog, now Stoughton, and the 
General Court authorized the establishment of Indian 
towns at several other places. Daniel Gookin was 
appointed by the General Court, in 1656, to be super- 
intendent of the Indians within the district of Massa- 
chusetts, and continued in that office, doing excellent 
service, till his death in 1687. 

In due time Eliot completed the translation of the 
Bible into the Indian language, and it was published 
in 1663. He also prepared a catechism in the same 
language, and a version of the metrical paraphrase of 
the Book of Psalms. 

From this necessarily brief survey of the early growth 
of Congregationalism in New England, it will be seen 
that to the end of the seventeenth century it continued 
to represent, almost exclusively, the religious life of the 
people; that it largely influenced the organization of 
government in these formative years ; and that it well 
fulfilled its opportunities, both in occupying the towns 
and plantations of English settlements and in edu- 
cating and Christianizing the Indians. In 1647 there 
were 43 churches in New England. In 1650 the num- 
ber had grown to 58, and in 1674 to 82, including three 



I/O CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

on Long Island and one on Martha's Vineyard. In 1674 
there were also in Massachusetts 14 towns of "praying 
Indians," with a total population of about iioo. In 
1685 there were in Plymouth colony 1400 adult 
"praying Indians." Among the 300 Indian families 
in Martha's Vineyard, there were three churches and 10 
teachers of Indian blood. In Nantucket, with perhaps 
one-half as many Indians, there were three towns and 
one church. In 1696 there were in New England over 
130 white churches, and 30 Indian towns supplied by 
Indian preachers. The total population amounted to 
about 140,000, of which perhaps 20,000 were Indians. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 

THE New England churches held that only those 
who had consciously experienced the new birth, 
and their children, were fitted for membership. Dur- 
ing- the first and second generations this condition 
occasioned no perplexity. All parents who were 
church members ofTered their children in baptism, on 
the ground that they were included in the covenant. 
Cotton stated the common belief in these words : 
^* The same covenant which God made with the 
National Church of Israel and their seed, it is the 
very same . . . which the Lord maketh with any 
Congregational church and our seed." These children 
received baptism not as a condition of admission into 
the church, but because, being in the church by birth, 
they were entitled to this rite. 

But some of these children, as they grew up, could 
not claim the experience of the new birth, which was 
held to be essential to church membership. They were 
in the church without being fully entitled to its privi- 
leges. They made no public confession of their faith, 
and therefore were not admitted to the Lord's Supper. 
Some of these persons had children. The question 
whether such parents had the right to present their 
children for baptism disturbed New England churches 
for more than a century. 

As early as 1634 a member of the church in Dor- 

171 



1/2 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Chester desired baptism for his grandchild, neither of 
whose parents were church members. The advice of 
the Boston church was sought, and given in these 
words: *'We do therefore profess it to be the judg- 
ment of our church . . . that the grandfather, a 
member of the church, may claim the privilege of bap- 
tism to his grandchild, though his next seed, the 
parents of the child, be not received themselves into 
church covenant." Other occasions for discussing the 
question arose from time to time. Hooker, Davenport 
and others held that only the children of ** visible 
saints" should be baptized. Others, like Phillips of 
Watertown, affirmed that all descendants of visible 
saints belong within the church. But all agreed that 
only those baptized children could properly be ad- 
mitted into full communion, that is, to the Lord's table, 
who had been personally renewed by the Holy Spirit. 
Thus there arose in every community a third class, as 
related to the church. The first class was composed 
of church members in full communion, the second were 
the unregenerate, with no connection with the church. 
This third class were persons who had been born and 
baptized in the church, believers in the Bible, educated 
in Christian faith, who lived according to the teachings 
of the Christian religion and wished to train their chil- 
dren in the same ways, but who could not say with 
confidence that they had experienced the new birth. 
To have admitted this third class to the full privi- 
leges of membership would have been against the fun- 
damental principle of the New England churches, that 
only those consciously united to Christ by the new 
birth were members of His church. It would have 
brought the church down to the level of the English 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 1 73 

Church, which the Puritans had so earnestly sought to 
reform, which received to full fellowship all persons 
of outwardly moral life. To have rejected them al- 
together would have been to have weakened the 
influence of the church in the community, and to have 
shut out from the covenant some who by birth 
belonged to it. That could be done only by excommu- 
nication, for the churches held that the only doors of 
withdrawal from the covenant were death, dismission 
to another church or excommunication. Besides, it 
was not felt to be just to withhold the much valued 
privileges of Christian training from those sons and 
daughters of believers, who, as Cotton Mather said, 
were ''sober persons, who professed themselves desir- 
ous to renew their baptismal covenant, and submit 
unto the church discipline," and so have their houses 
also marked for the Lord's ; but who were not able 
to ''come up to that experimental account of their 
own regeneration which would sufficiently embolden 
their access to the other sacrament." 

This third class was constantly increasing In num- 
ber, many of them were men of character and influ- 
ence in their communities, yet they had no vote nor 
voice in calling a pastor nor In managing church 
affairs. It was natural that this condition should 
arouse excited feeling and that It should constantly 
tend to increase. Prominent among the causes which 
led to the calling of the Cambridge Synod in 1646 was 
the complaint to the General Court of Massachusetts 
by Dr. Child and others that their children were "de- 
barred from the seals of the covenant." The court, in 
calling that synod, had especially commended to its 
attention this subject of the baptism of children, 



1/4 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

declaring that the views and practices of the churches 
had become so diverse that they would, *' if not timely 
remedied, beget such differences as will be displeasing 
to the Lord, offensive to others and dangerous to our- 
selves." This subject was discussed in the synod, and 
a declaration was inserted in Its Platform that the 
proper subjects of baptism were converted adults who 
joined in fellowship with a visible church, their chil- 
dren ''and all their seed after them that cast not off 
the covenant of God by some scandalous and obstinate 
going on in sin." This statement, however, was 
omitted from the final draft of the Platform, though 
favored by the majority. The violent opposition of 
some leading men, among whom President Chauncey 
of Harvard College was specially prominent, caused it 
to be abandoned. 

That action did not quiet discussion. Traces of It 
abound In the epistolary correspondence of that 
period. Henry Smith of VVethersfield, Conn., wrote 
to Richard Mather in 1647 that his people were 
at a loss as to the admission of members' chil- 
dren to the communion because the synod had not 
made any deliverance concerning it. He favored 
the larger view. Messrs. Stone of Hartford and 
Wareham of Windsor agreed with Mr. Smith. 
Thomas Shepard of Cambridge approved of the 
same position. John Cotton thought that these non- 
regenerate children of church members, though not 
fit to come to the Lord's Supper, might make profes- 
sion full enough to admit their children to baptism, 
" or to the same estate Ishmael stood in after circum- 
cision." In 1650 Mr. Stone of Hartford expressed 
his conviction that unless a synod should be called 




COLORADO COLLEGE, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. 



176 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

that very year to settle the matter the Connecticut 
churches would put in practice these new views, which 
were called halfway covenant principles. By 1654 
the Salem church had accepted them, though they 
were not put in practice till several years later. In 
1655 the church in Dorchester discussed the subject 
earnestly, and being divided in opinion, sent letters to 
the churches of Boston, Roxbury, Dedham and Brain- 
tree, expressing their purpose, unless it should be 
offensive to these churches, to baptize the children of 
non-regenerate parents who had inherited the privi- 
leges of the church. In 1656 the church at Ipswich 
voted to adopt the new system. It declared that chil- 
dren who were not more than fourteen years old when 
their parents joined the church were themselves also 
members of the church ; that the pastor should call 
on them to take the covenant ; and that, when they 
came to maturity, their children should be baptized ; 
but that these persons should not be admitted to the 
Lord's table without evidence that they had experi- 
enced a work of faith and repentance. 

But while most of the pastors were in favor of 
the new theories, many of the laity were strongly 
opposed to them. The opinions of the ministers 
would naturally find fullest expression and record ; 
but there is sufficient evidence of strong conservatism 
among the lay brethren, many of whom regarded the 
new movement as undermining the safeguards of the 
purity of the church, and as bringing into New Eng- 
land the corruptions from which they had fled in the 
old country. Yet, opposed to these conservatives 
within the church were those outside of It who con- 
tributed to its support, believed in its doctrines, were 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 1 77 

in sympathy with its aims, but who were in a sense 
ostracized because they could not comply with the 
terms of membership by recounting a religious experi- 
ence satisfactory to the church. These had also many 
friends within the church. The feeling in behalf of 
these persons was especially strong in Connecticut. 
It seems to have been intensified by a quarrel which 
lasted several years, from 1653 to 1659, between Sam- 
uel Stone, the teacher, and William Goodwin, the ruling 
elder of the Hartford church, concerning the choice of a 
successor to Mr. Hooker. This quarrel finally resulted 
in the withdrawal of a number of the members of that 
church and the formation of a new settlement at 
Hadley, Mass. It does not seem to have been par- 
ticularly concerned with the extent to which bap- 
tism might be practiced, but it undoubtedly helped to 
prompt the petition which w^as presented to the Con- 
necticut General Court in May, 1656, asking that 
grievances might be removed. The court appointed 
a committee of seven to consider these grievances and 
to prepare questions concerning them to be presented 
to the courts of the colonies. In response to the 
questions sent by this committee, the Massachusetts 
General Court appointed thirteen ministers to meet to 
consider them June 4, 1657, and advised the other 
colonies of the proposed meeting. Plymouth took no 
action. New Haven declined to take part, and 
expressed its continued adherence to the old ways. 
Connecticut sent four ministers to the meeting, which 
was held in Boston at the time appointed. It con- 
tinued in session two weeks. It answered the twenty- 
one questions which had been put before it, all of 
which concerned the same subject, the baptism of the 



178 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

children of non-regenerate but baptized persons. The 
general conclusion of the assembly was that the 
children of church members who were come to 
maturity, but were not yet fit for the Lord's Supper, 
were still members of the church, and ought ''to own 
the covenant they made with their parents by entering 
thereinto in their own persons." Yet it was decided 
that while the children of those thus owning the 
covenant ought to be admitted to baptism, they them- 
selves ought not to come to the Lord's table, nor vote 
in church affairs, till they had made a profession of 
personal regeneration. 

This decision only excited further discussion, which 
grew so sharp in some instances as to threaten division 
in the churches. It is difficult for us to understand 
how feeling could have risen so high on a subject 
which is now left to the conscience of the individual 
minister and believer. But in those days political and 
social standing was closely connected with church 
standing. In all the colonies government practically 
inhered in the churches. Christian character was gen- 
erally regarded as necessary to citizenship. Only 
persons whom God approved were fit to be trusted 
with power, and the evidence of God's approval was 
such a personal experience as assured the believer that 
his heart had been changed by the Holy Spirit. 
Besides, the accession of Charles II. to the throne of 
England in 1660 threatened anew to overthrow the 
New England church ways and to introduce those 
which were most repugnant to the Puritans. 

So strong was the opposition to the new theories 
that the General Court of Massachusetts, December 
31, 1 66 1, ordered the churches of the colony to send 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 1 79 

their pastors and delegates to a synod to be held in 
Boston on the second Tuesday of March following, 
*'to discuss and declare what they shall judge to be 
the mind of God, revealed in His Word, concerning 
such questions as shall be propounded to them by 
the order of this court." Those were days when the 
jurisdiction of the Legislature over the church seems 
not to have been questioned. The court propounded 
to the synod two questions : (i) Who are the subjects 
of baptism ? (2) Ought there to be a consociation of 
churches, and if so, what should be the manner of 
it ? The synod gave a general affirmative answer to 
the second question, but its attention was mainly con- 
centrated on the subject of baptism. The synod was 
composed of about seventy persons, many of them 
famous in the history of Massachusetts churches. 
Most prominent in favor of the Halfway Covenant 
was Jonathan Mitchell, the young and brilliant Cam- 
bridge pastor. His most formidable opponent was 
the venerable President Chauncey. For a fortnight 
the matter was discussed without approaching a con- 
clusion ; when an adjournment was had to June 10. 
A second adjournment followed to September 10. It 
must have been evident by that time that the large 
majority were in favor of the conclusions adopted by 
the assembly of ministers five years before. But the 
conservative party was determined not to yield till 
every effort to resist had failed, John Davenport of 
New Haven was appealed to, and sent in writing his 
objections to the views of the majority. Increase 
Mather undertook to read these objections to the 
body, but John Norton prevented him. However, he 
published them, and so got them before the delegates. 



l8o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

It seems to have been agreed by all that children 
of church members are by birth in the same covenant 
with their parents. But to the doctrine that the chil- 
dren of such children might be admitted to baptism 
the opposition was weighty, though the persons on that 
side were not numerous. Finally, however, seven 
propositions were adopted, declaring in substance what 
the assembly of ministers had agreed on in 1657, that 
members of the visible church are subjects of baptism : 
that believers who have entered into covenant and 
their minor children are members of the visible 
church, and that the children of church members 
admitted in minority who are not scandalous in life 
and have owned the covenant are also to be baptized. 
These propositions were adopted by a vote of sixty 
in the affirmative to less than ten against, and pre- 
sented to the General Court. But the opposition 
presented its objections and urged them with force ; 
and though the court paid little attention to the 
protest, the synodists and anti-synodists for a long 
time kept the Cambridge presses hot with the pam- 
phlets they issued on the controversy. Chauncey, 
Davenport and Increase Mather wrote vigorously 
against the action of the synod, while Mitchell, Allen, 
and Richard Mather as earnestly defended it. Their 
arguments won Increase Mather to their side, and 
within less than ten years he became the most con- 
spicuous defender of the synod's conclusions. Curi- 
ously enough both parties urged the same reasons 
for their opposing positions. The conservatives 
declared that the Halfway Covenant would result 
in filling the churches with unregenerate persons 
and so break down the distinction between the 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. l8l 

church and the world. The advocates of the new 
measure urged that, unless it should be adopted, 
the churches could not be prevented from so low- 
ering the terms of communion as to admit unsuit- 
able persons to all privileges. They held that the 
Halfway Covenant would prove a barrier to guard 
full communion more effectually. 

Meanwhile the churches were threatened by two kinds 
of danger. The first came from those who denounced 
and sought to break them up from without ; the second 
from those who sought to enter them without suitable 
qualifications. The sect of Quakers arose in England 
about 1648, with George Fox as their founder. He 
was a thoughtful and devout young man who relied 
much on inward revelations. He, and the followers 
who gathered around him, soon began to believe it to 
be tlieir duty to denounce churches as idol temples 
and to cry out against those who worshiped in them. 
He commanded a magistrate who caused his arrest to 
*' tremble at the word of the Lord," and the magistrate 
gave him the nickname of Quaker, a title which was 
quickly taken up and popularly applied to him and his 
followers. Many of them were whipped, beaten, im- 
prisoned and otherwise abused in England. 

The news of this new sect soon reached New 
England. The memory of the troubles with Mrs. 
Hutchinson was yet fresh. New strife would threaten 
the independence of the still infant colonies. When 
some of the books of the Quakers appeared in Massa- 
chusetts in 1654 they were burned by order of the 
General Court. In i6s6 two Quaker women came to 
Boston from the Barbadoes. Governor Endecott sent 
them back on the same ship which brought them. A 



1 82 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

little later eight others arrived from England and were 
treated in the same way. Each of the five colonies, 
on the recommendation of the Federal Commissioners, 
took steps to prohibit Quakers and other heretics from 
coming within their bounds. In 1657, the same year 
the assembly of ministers met in Boston to decide 
on the question concerning the Halfway Covenant, 
fifteen Quakers, some of whom had been sent away 
the year before, arrived in New England. Several 
were imprisoned, and some were whipped. Severer 
laws were passed against them amid general alarm. 
The Federal Commissioners advised that they be 
banished under pain of severe corporal punishment if 
they returned ; and that if any returned after a second 
banishment they should be put to death. Massachu- 
setts alone of the colonies adopted the extreme 
penalty. It seemed probable that the Legislature 
thought that if the law were passed it would be suffi- 
cient to deter Quakers from coming into the colony. 
But that proved to be a mistaken idea. Marmaduke 
Stevenson, in the Barbadoes, heard of the law and 
started at once for New England. Arrived at Rhode 
Island, ''the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 
Go to Boston w^ith thy brother, William Robinson." 
Mary Dyer heard of the law, and '' was moved of the 
Lord to come to Boston." Nicholas Davis came also. 
All four received sentence of banishment. They 
departed, but in about a month Robinson and Steven- 
son felt constrained of the Lord to come back to 
Boston and suffer martyrdom. When they arrived 
they found that Mary Dyer had also returned. All 
three were sentenced to be hanged. The sentence 
was executed on both men. Mary Dyer was delivered 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 



183 



into the charge of her son, who promised to take her 
home and keep her there. But the next spring she 
returned again to Boston, was again condemned to die 
and was hung. William Leddra and Wenlock Christi- 
son were also sentenced to death, and the former was 
hung in March, 1661. By that time public sentiment 
revolted against putting persons to death because of 




FANEUIL HALL, THE CRADLE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. BUILT 1 742. 

their opinions and the persecution stopped. The 
Quakers had conquered the Puritans. For some time 
they continued their absurd antics. They interrupted 
public meetings. A young woman in Salem went 
naked about the streets. Another with the same 
absence of clothing attended church at Newbury. 
Others went about in strange disguises and disfigure- 
ments. But when the authorities ceased punishing 
them they gradually ceased offending. 

During these years, also, there were persecutions 



1 84 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

against the Baptists. In 1644 the General Court 
passed an order banishing those who held and taught 
Baptist views. In 1651 three Baptists were arrested 
for holding- a public meeting and sent to jail. One of 
them was whipped, choosing that punishment rather 
than pay his fine. In 1665 a Baptist church was 
organized at Charlestown, which ultimately became 
the First Baptist Church of Boston. Five of its mem- 
bers, who were freemen, were disfranchised. Two 
were imprisoned for nearly a year. Three of the 
leaders were sentenced to banishment ; but these 
persecutions appear soon to have ceased, for in 1670 
the agents of the colony in England were instructed to 
say concerning the Baptists : '' They are now subject 
to no other penal statutes than those of the Congre- 
gational wa)^" 

The facts concerning these persecutions of Quakers 
and Baptists have been here impartially set down. 
Judged in the light of our time they would be without 
excuse. But it must be remembered that while some 
thirty Quakers were punished in various ways by order 
of the Massachusetts General Court, some thousands 
underwent similar punishments in England. When 
in 1662 Charles II. wrote to the Massachusetts Gov- 
ernment directing that greater liberty in worship should 
be allowed, he expressly excepted Quakers. He wrote : 
" We cannot be understood hereby to direct or wish 
that any indulgence should be granted to those persons 
commonly called Quakers, whose being is inconsistent 
with any kind of government. We have found it 
necessary by the advice of our Parliament here to 
make sharp laws against them, and are well content 
that you do the like there." The Puritans undertook 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 1 85 

to establish on land which they had fairly acquired a 
theocracy, according to what they believed to be the 
laws of God. They insisted that these laws, as they 
understood them, should be obeyed within their own 
boundaries. It must be remembered that Quakers 
usually denied the authority of all civil government. 
The Puritans only asked that those who would not 
obey should leave them. They believed that their 
liberties were imperiled by persistent invaders, and 
when these refused to depart they inflicted punish- 
ments which in our judgment were severe and cruel. 
It is fortunate that they learned so soon the futility of 
attempting to protect their government by these means. 

But while the peace of the churches was disturbed 
by those from the outside who condemned it, their 
purity was threatened by those who sought to enter 
without possessing the requirements of admission on 
which the churches had insisted. John Norton 
and Simon Bradstreet had been sent to Encrland to 
propitiate the new king, Charles II., and to secure a 
continuation of the charter of Massachusetts. In this 
they were successful, but they also brought back in- 
structions that the use of the Prayer Book should be 
permitted to all who might desire to use it ; that church 
membership should no longer be a necessary qualifica- 
tion for freemen, and that all persons of good, honest 
lives should be admitted to the Lord's Supper and 
their children to baptism. Mr. Norton became very 
unpopular as a consequence of being the bearer of 
these messages, and died a few months afterward, 
having been greatly depressed by his reception on his 
return from Engrland. 

This attack from the king on the strictness of early 



1 86 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Congregationalism was strengthened by a petition to 
the General Court of Connecticut, presented in Octo- 
ber, 1664, by several persons of good standing, asking 
the court to compel ministers to admit them to the 
Lord's table and their children to baptism, or else to 
relieve them from contributing to the support of any 
minister who should refuse. The court called on the 
ministers to consider whether it was not their duty to 
receive into church fellowship such persons as were 
of good conversation and desired to enter into the 
covenant, and whether baptized children who had 
grown up should not be admitted to full communion, 
if found qualified to share in the Lord's Supper. The 
court also asked the officers of the churches to con- 
sider whether it was not the duty of the court to order 
the churches to do these things. 

These steps promised to open the door into the 
churches even more widely than was contemplated by 
the Halfway Covenant. Of course they intensified 
the opposition, which came from men who felt that 
they were defending the church of God against in- 
vasion. The pastors of Norwalk and Stamford sent to 
the court a joint letter of protest against the new 
proposal. The excitement was increased by the re- 
ception of a new charter from England uniting in one 
ofovernment the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. 
Abraham Pierson of Branford and the majority of 
his people in the spring of 1666 prepared to remove to 
Newark, N. J., because of their dissatisfaction with this 
union and with the Halfway Covenant. The church 
in Stratford was disturbed by a quarrel over the same 
subject, resulting in division and the planting of a new 
town at Woodbury. The church in Hartford was 



THE HALFWAY COVENANT. 1 8/ 

Split into two factions, each led by one of its ministers. 
John Davenport left New Haven, unwilling- to remain 
in the colony after it was united to Connecticut, where 
the Halfway Covenant views prevailed. '' It is no 
slight matter," he wrote to Governor Winthrop, who 
had procured the new charter, '' but that which con- 
cerns the preserving of Christian churches in peace, 
and gospel ordinances in purity. It is the faith and 
order of the churches of Christ, which we are called to 
contend for, that they may be preserved entire and 
uncorrupted." When John Wilson died, in 1667, 
Davenport was called to the First Church in Boston by 
the large majority, who sympathized with his views. 
His coming was followed by the withdrawal of twenty- 
eight male members, who formed, by the aid of an ex 
par^e council, the Third, which has long been known as 
the Old South Church. For fourteen years there was 
no communion between the old church and the new ; 
and the churches of the colony were long divided in 
sentiment, those who were against the synod favoring 
the First Church, and those who were for it, the Third 
Church. In October, 1666, the General Court ordered 
a synod to be called to meet in May of the next year 
to settle a number of questions which had arisen in 
these unhappy controversies. One of these questions 
was whether the whole congregation were obliged to ac- 
cept the choice of a minister by the church, or whether 
dissatisfied persons had any other source of appeal. 

But the synod, though it met as ordered, was 
shrewdly managed by ^those who opposed the Half- 
way Covenant, and never accomplished any result. 
It adjourned to October, and before that time the 
Federal Commissioners were induced to vote to sug- 



1 88 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

gest the calling of a synod representing all the churches 
of the colonies. To this the Connecticut Court 
agreed, but the Massachusetts Court failed to take up 
the matter. In 1669 the Connecticut Court voted to 
approve both the churches which practiced the Half- 
way Covenant and those which opposed it, and to 
permit churches divided on the question to separate. 
This action the two factions of the Hartford Church 
at once took advantage of, and the Second Church was 
formed. When the churches found that neither view 
w^as to be insisted on as the only orthodox way, the 
intensity of discussion subsided ; but it had already 
introduced lines of cleavage deeply into the life of the 
churches, and its evil results will appear more dis- 
tinctly in the records which conclude the eighteenth 
century. 




COTTOxN MATHER, D. D. 



CHAPTER X. 

RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. 

WITH the passing away of the first generation of 
Pilgrims and Puritans much of the spirit of self- 
sacrifice in planting a new nation with high Christian 
principles also passed away. Ministers were less able 
and had less commanding influence. The dissensions 
in local churches, especially bitter in the chief towns, 
such as Boston and Hartford, weakened their power 
over the communities, and diminished their spiritual 
fervor. The subjects discussed, in which prominent 
persons became involved and in some instances their 
characters questioned, produced opposing parties, not 
in the churches only but in the political organizations 
of the colonies. Immediate personal relations with 
God became of less interest to Christians as compared 
with disputes concerning personal relations with the 
churches. From 1670 to 1680 only three churches 
were organized in Massachusetts, a smaller number 
than in any other decade of her history. Few persons 
were received into full communion. Grave lapses of 
members, which compelled discipline, increased. 

Evidences that this religious decline was felt and de- 
plored abound in the annual election sermons during and 
just previous to this decade. Year after year the gov- 
ernor and legislature were reminded by the prophets 
of the day that the glory of New England was depart- 
ing. *'We have abated in our esteem of ordinances, 
in our hungering and thirsting after the rich provisions 

189 



IQO CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of the house of God," says Mr. Stoughton in 1668. 
''Ah, how doth the unsoundness, the rottenness, the 
hypocrisy of too many amongst us make itself known." 
'' Have we not reason to expect that ere long our 
mourners will go up and down, and say. How is New 
England fallen ! The land that was a land of holiness 
hath lost her holiness ! " exclaimed Mr. Walley in 1669. 
'' Doth not a careless, remiss, flat, dry, cold, dead frame 
of spirit grow upon you secretly, strongly, prodi- 
giously?" appealed Mr. Danforth in 1670. In sermons 
like these there is a profound pathos and terrible ear- 
nestness on the part of ministers which must have been 
intensified by the spiritual deadness of the people who 
could hear such appeals without response. 

Disasters -to persons and property, and threatening 
dangers to the political life of the colonies, made the 
dearth of religious interests more ominous. The peo- 
ple had been trained to believe that calamities were 
signs of God's displeasure. Their fasts and thanks- 
givings had been national recognitions of His provi- 
dences in all their affairs. They had experienced many 
wonderful and continued signs of divine favor. The 
Indians, whom their fathers had naturally feared, had 
been friendly. For fifty years there had been peace 
between Indians and English except during the brief 
Pequot war of 1637. During the civil strifes of the 
mother country they had been left at peace, and 
through the times of Charles I., of Cromwell and his 
son, and in the earlier years of the reign of Charles II. 
they had retained their charter undisturbed. Trade 
had flourished in spite of some persistent efforts by 
England to restrict it; and the harvests had usually 
been abundant. 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. I9I 

But now the crops had repeatedly failed. Unusual 
disasters had occurred at sea. Severe epidemics, 
especially the smallpox, had fallen on the colonies. 
The visit of the royal commissioners from England in 
1664 had awakened alarms and anxieties which were 
long in subsiding. The disputes with the mother coun- 
try were revived in 1676, when Edward Randolph came 
to Massachusetts with a message from King Charles 
complaining of the colony's infraction of its privileges, 
and demanding that the authorities should send repre- 
sentatives to England to defend its claims to its charter. 
The contest continued till in 1684 the English Court 
of Chancery vacated the charter. King Philip's war, 
1674-1676, which had aimed at nothing less than the 
extermination of Englishmen, had brought to every 
community unspeakable horrors. At least one in every 
twelve men of military age had been killed, many of 
them with horrible barbarities. Almost every family 
was in mourning. The loss of property had been ter- 
rible. Some entire towns had been destroyed, and the 
colonies were almost bankrupt because of the heavy 
debts imposed by the war. * 

Oppressed by these circumstances and by the sense 
of religious decline in the churches. Increase Mather, 
pastor of the Second Church in Boston and the lead- 
ing minister in New England, prepared a petition to 
the Massachusetts General Court, and secured to it 
the signatures of eighteen prominent ministers. The 
petition requested the court to call a synod of the 
churches, with a view to ** inquiring into the causes 
and state of God's controversy with us," and to reform 
the evil conditions which had fallen on them. The 
court, to which the petition was presented May 28, 



192 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

1679, promptly responded, and ordered the churches 
to assemble by their messengers on the second Wed- 
nesday of September following to revise the Platform 
agreed on in 1647 ; and they were ordered to provide 
for the expenses of the meeting. At this time there 
seems to have been little question of the propriety of 
the civil government issuing such orders, though the 
First Church of Boston voted that it did not see the 
necessity for calling the synod, but was willing to send 
messengers to it, " though whatever is there deter- 
mined, we look upon and judge to be no further 
binding to us than the light of God's Word is thereby 
cleared to our consciences." These two questions, 
which were appended to the request from the 
ministers, formed the subjects of discussion by the 
synod: (i) ''What are the evils that have pro- 
voked the Lord to bring His judgment on New 
England?" (2) "What is to be done that those evils 
may be reformed ? " 

After full and free discussion, occupying several days, 
the synod unanimously adopted a result, including an- 
swers to both questions. It mentioned thirteen evils as 
prevalent : the decay of godliness among professing 
Christians ; pride as shown in insubordination, strife 
and extravagance in dress ; neglect of baptism and 
church fellowship, and of testifying against Quakers 
and Baptists ; profanity and irreverence ; Sabbath- 
breaking ; neglect of family worship and discipline ; 
quarrels, slanders and lawsuits between church mem- 
bers ; intemperance ; lustful behavior and adultery ; 
untruthfulness ; worldly ambition and covetousness, 
leading to stinginess and unfair dealing in business; 
leniency toward sin ; indifference to the public welfare, 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. I93 

and sins against the gospel by refusing to repent and 
by general unfruitfulness. 

For these evils the synod prescribed twelve remedies, 
namely, that prominent persons should be careful to 
set good examples ; that the Cambridge Platform be 
reaffirmed ; that only regenerate persons be ad- 
mitted to the Lord's Supper ; that church discipline 
be faithfully enforced ; that efforts be made to have 
the churches fully officered, with pastor, teacher and 
ruling elders ; that the magistrates see that these 
officers are suitably supported ; that righteous laws be 
enforced and the best persons be chosen to do it ; that 
the churches solemnly renew their covenant ; that 
they engage against the sins of the times ; that they 
clearly express in their covenants their purposes of 
holy living and labor ; that they promote diligently 
the cause of education in the college and the schools : 
and that all " cry mightily unto God . . . that he 
would be pleased to rain down righteousness." 

Besides answering these two questions in this sum- 
mary of evils and the remedies proposed for them, 
the synod appointed a committee to prepare a con- 
fession of faith, and report at a second session, 
which was held May 12, 1680. This committee was 
practically relieved of labor by a synod of Congre- 
gationalists, or Independents, as they were called in 
England, which had been held in the Savoy Palace in 
London in 1658. The confession prepared by the 
Westminster Assembly, and adopted by Parliament 
ten years before, was mainly the work of the Pres- 
byterians. As the Independents rose into power, it 
was natural that they should determine to have a 
confession of their own. The Savoy Synod, though 



194 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

not officially summoned by the English government, 
was called by the Congregational ministers in and 
about London, who had been summoned by the 
Clerk of the Council of State to take action. The 
synod w^as in session only twelve working days. A 
number of those who composed it had been active 
also in the Westminster Assembly. The confession 
prepared by the earlier body had been altered to 
some extent by Parliament before it was adopted. 
Some further alterations of a minor nature were 
made, especial emphasis being laid on the rightful- 
ness of toleration and on the more gracious aspects 
of the gospel, the result being the doctrinal part 
of the Savoy declaration. To this were added thirty 
sections concerning church order, setting forth com- 
pactly and clearly the grand outlines of the Con- 
gregational polity. The whole formed '' A Declara- 
tion of the Faith and Order owned and Practiced in 
the Congregational churches in England." 

This confession had little effect on the churches 
whose representatives prepared it. But Increase 
Mather, and President Urian Oakes, of Harvard, 
who were the leading members of the Committee of 
the Massachusetts Synod of 1679, had been in England 
at the time of the Savoy Synod ; and no doubt through 
their influence the Savoy Confession, with slight 
alterations, was now adopted as the creed of the 
Massachusetts churches. Though it was not meant to 
and did not supplant the creeds of local churches, it 
appears to have been adopted by the Old South 
Church of Boston, and the First Church of Cambridge, 
and perhaps by some others. The Massachusetts 
General Court commended the action of the synod 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. I95 

to the consideration of all the churches and enjoined 
all persons to diligent reformation of the evils which 
the synod had named, and ordered its deliverance con- 
cerning them, as also the confession of faith, to be 
printed. 

The action of the synod produced good fruit. 
Cotton Mather says it was followed, " not only by 
a great advancement of holiness in the people but also 
by a great addition of converts to their holy fellow- 
ship." Many of the churches of Massachusetts sol- 
emnly renewed their covenants ; and their example 
was followed extensively by those of the other colonies. 
Singularly, however, very many of the additions were 
not to full communion, but were of persons received by 
the Halfway Covenant. In the Old South Church, 
for example, April 30, 1680, seventy-nine persons 
" owned the covenant." They were nearly all young 
people. The additions to the same church the fol- 
lowing year were only two. In subsequent years 
those received into fellowship were largely of the 
class which did not come into full communion, though 
no doubt in many cases this step was followed later 
by a profession of religious experience. The records 
of the First Church in Hartford, for example, show 
that within a month, in 1696, one hundred and ninety- 
two persons, probably nearly all the young people in 
the congregation, signed their names to the covenant. 
Two years after the final session of the Reforming 
Synod, as it has been known in our history, and 
perhaps as one of its results, the First and Third 
(Old South) churches of Boston, which for fourteen 
years had not fellowshipped each other, were recon- 
ciled, and ''both the churches kept a solemn day 



196 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

together, wherein, lamenting the infirmities that had 
attended their former contentions, they gave thanks 
to the great Peace Maker for effecting this joyful 
reconciliation." 

But notwithstanding this temporary revival of re- 
ligious interest, yet darker clouds were gathering over 
New England, brooding most heavily on Massa- 
chusetts. The decree vacating its charter, which was 
made final October 23, 1684, was the downfall of the 
Puritan commonwealth. The humiliation of Massa- 
chusetts was made complete by the appointment of 
the brutal Colonel Kirk as its governor, and though 
his coming was defeated by the death of the king, 
before the close of the next year Sir Edmund Andros 
had arrived with a commission as governor of New 
England. A few months later he seized the Old 
South meeting house in which to hold the services 
of the Church of England. The church from whose 
persecutions the Puritans had fled now thrust itself 
into their very sanctuaries, and threatened to levy on 
them taxes for its support. Palfrey says, '* If the de- 
mand had been for the use of the building for a mass, 
or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it could scarcely 
have been to the generality of the people more offen- 
sive." The act of seizure was not only a humiliating 
reminder that the people were now deprived of their 
rights of self-government, but it was also a threat that 
the religious system they had planted might be sup- 
pressed, and a menace to all their titles to their homes 
and property. This, indeed, was but one incident in 
a course of despotism which was certain to rouse the 
spirits of Englishmen to revolution. Another illustra- 
tion of the odious rule of Andros arose in connection 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. 197 

with his attempt to impose an arbitrary tax on the peo- 
ple. John Wise, minister of Ipswich, protested against , 
this, and as a punishment was imprisoned and fined 
fifty pounds, and suspended from the ministry. 

About this time there began to rise into prominence 
in Massachusetts a young man who became the most 
famous minister In New England during the close of 
the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth 
centuries. Cotton Mather was born in Boston, Feb- 
ruary 12, 1663. His mother was the only daughter of 
John Cotton, long the illustrious minister of the First 
Church. On his father's side, he was the grandson 
of Richard Mather, the honored first pastor of the 
church In Dorchester. His father, Increase Mather, 
has already often been mentioned in these pages, the 
pastor of the Second, or North Church in Boston, a 
man of eminence on both sides of the ocean. About 
this time, 1685, Increase Mather was chosen President 
of Harvard College, which position he held for sixteen 
years besides his pastorate. 

Cotton Mather received the bachelors degree from 
Harvard in 1678. In all the history of that institution 
only two persons have received that degree at an 
earlier age than he. In May, 1685, he was ordained 
as colleague pastor with his father. He began his 
ministry in stormy times. In April, 1688, his father 
went to England to try to procure a restoration of the 
charter and relief from the hated rule of Andros, and 
also to secure a royal charter for Harvard College. 
In December of that year the brief reign of James II. 
came to an end, and two weeks later William and 
Mary ascended the throne of England. When the 
news reached Boston, April 4, 1689, that William had 



198 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

landed In England, the citizens seized and imprisoned 
Andros and his chief assistants, and formed a pro- 
visional government. The ministers of Boston were 
active in that revolution. Cotton Mather appears to 
have been one of the leaders in it and to have done 
much to prevent undue violence. When the news 
arrived, May 26, of the accession of William and Mary, 
Simon Bradstreet, then in his eighty-seventh year, the 
only survivor of the Puritan leaders of the first gener- 
ation, was again made governor, which office he held 
till 1692, when he was succeeded by Sir William 
Phips, the first governor under the new charter. 
That charter was the result of the diplomacy of 
Increase Mather. 

The last ten years of the seventeenth century have 
been called the "woeful decade" for New Enorland. 
In the spring of 1692 the famous witchcraft panic 
broke out in Salem. It was no new thing to believe 
in witchcraft nor to punish witches. In 1648 Margaret 
Jones had been condemned as a witch by the judicious 
Governor Winthrop and executed. In 1651 Martha 
Parsons was put to death at Springfield. In 1653 
another woman was hanged in Hartford under the 
same accusation. From time to time during the inter- 
vening period before 1692 several persons, eight or 
nine in all, had been condemned in New England as 
witches. The epidemic of witchcraft which threw 
Massachusetts into convulsions was brief in time and 
small in its results, as compared with the excitement 
which spread over Europe. James Russell Lowell 
says : " Puritanism had nothing to do with it. They 
acted under a delusion which, with an exception here 
and there, darkened the understanding of all Chris- 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. I99 

tendom. . . The proceedings of the Salem trial are 
sometimes spoken of as If they were exceptionally 
cruel. But In fact, If compared with others of the 
same kind, they were exceptionally humane." The 
witchcraft delusion, as It has been called, broke out 
again and again In Europe as a storm of terror. It 
has been estimated that In the British Islands thirty 
thousand suffered death for witchcraft, seventy-five 
thousand in France, one hundred thousand In Ger- 
many, and many thousands in other countries of 
Europe. In the New England colonies thirty-two 
were executed, of whom twenty were in Salem. Be- 
yond question the publication of stories of witches 
and of their trials before the courts in England had 
great influence in exciting the fears and passions of 
the people of Massachusetts^ and in causing the trage- 
dies at Salem. 

It was the common belief in those days that current 
events were directly caused by supernatural powers, 
benignant or malicious. Diseases which we trace to 
bad drainage the people of that time believed were the 
infliction of bad spirits. They had frequent visions of 
angels and of devils. To them the Indians and their 
territory were subject to Satan. He was fighting the 
Puritans, making use to that end of unregenerate souls 
who had surrendered to his influence, and they were 
striving in the name of God to overcome him. Minis- 
ters fasted and prayed against the works of the devil, 
and saw portents of his presence In storms and light- 
nings and fires and plagues. In 1684 Increase 
Mather wrote a book against witchcraft. Two 3^ears 
later Cotton Mather heard of a maid In Woburn 
possessed of the devil, resolved to study the action 



200 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of ''those evil humors/' and set apart days of secret 
prayer and fasting to cast out devils. About 
that time he recorded the appearance of a glorious 
angel, who foretold to him the great influence he 
should have through his mind and books, " not only in 
America, but in Europe," and as a consequence of his 
vision he had prayed : '' From the wiles of the devil, 
I beseech thee, deliver and defend thy most unworthy 
servant." 

In brief, the story of the Salem witchcraft began by 
the seizure of the children of the minister, Mr. Paris, 
with st^nge disorders early in 1692. They accused 
their neighbors of bewitching them. Their story was 
believed. The panic spread. The people were 
stricken with terror. No one knew on whom sus- 
picion might fall, or what dark deeds Satan was medi- 
tating. The governor. Sir William Phips, appointed 
a special court to try the accused, June 2 Bridget 
Bishop, who had been accused several years before of 
being a witch, was condemned, and June 10 she was 
executed. The court then asked the advice of the 
ministers of Boston and vicinity. June 15 they 
replied at length in a Return written by Cotton 
Mather. They said : '' We judge that in the prose- 
cution of these and all such witchcrafts there is need 
of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too 
much credulity for things received only upon the devil's 
authority there be a door opened for a long train of 
miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage 
over us." They urged '' that all proceedings thereabout 
be managed with an exceeding tenderness toward those 
that may be complained of, especially if they have 
been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation." 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. 20I 

The number of those who claimed to be bewitched, 
however, rapidly increased. Multitudes thought them- 
selves possessed by the devil. Accusations multiplied. 
Many prominent people were denounced as witches. 
Cotton Mather says : '*The devil improves the dark, 
ness of this affair to push us into a blind man's buffet, 
and we are ready to be sinfully, yea, hotly and 
madly, mauling one another in the dark." Before the 
excitement had entirely passed, he himself was accused 
by a young woman of having bewitched her. By the 
22d of September nineteen persons in Salem had 
been hung, and one had been pressed to death. 
Among the victims was George Burroughs, a min- 
ister of some twenty years' standing, and a grad- 
uate of Harvard. The craze passed away almost 
as speedily as it sprang up. In January, 1693, the 
special court of Oyer and Terminer gave way to the 
regular Superior Court, which refused to admit " spec- 
tral evidence : " that is, it declined to receive as testi- 
mony the ravings of bewitched people. The next 
May all the accused who had been committed to jail, 
probably as many as two hundred, were released by 
the order of the governor. *' Such a jail delivery," 
says Hutchinson, *' has never been known in New 
England." 

Cotton Mather has been accused, but without any 
adequate evidence, of dishonesty in seeking the pun- 
ishment of witchcraft. Beyond doubt he believed in 
its reality, and was intensely in earnest to destroy it. 
But to any candid reader of his diary and other writ- 
ings on the subject the idea that he was actuated by 
malice is simply incredible. He and other ministers 
exercised a restraining influence on the public mind 



202 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

during those terrible days. Some eminent men, 
among whom were Simon Bradstreet, Increase Mather 
and Samuel Willard, pastor of the Old South Church, 
earnestly opposed the witchcraft proceedings. Three 
years later Samuel Sewall, one of the judges who 
had officially condemned those who had been 
executed, at a day of public fast openly confessed 
his blame and shame in connection with the court, 
asked the pardon of men and their prayers that 
he might have the forgiveness of God. But long 
after. Cotton Mather wrote in his diary, concern- 
ing his deliverances about witchcraft: « "Upon the 
severest examination, and the solemnest supplica- 
tion, I still think that for the main I have written 
right." 

The seventeenth century closed with mingled gains 
and losses to the churches. The Puritan common- 
wealth, which had fallen In 1684, came to a final end 
with the issuance of the new provincial charter in 1692. 
From that time the church ceased to be the ruling 
power in the colony of Massachusetts. Before that 
only church members could vote, and the propor- 
tion of voters to the population had dwindled till less 
than one adult in five was a freeman. By the new 
charter only a property qualification was to be required 
of voters. The governor was to be appointed by the 
Crown, but the right of the people to choose their 
own legislature was expressly confirmed. The exclu- 
sive right of the legislature to impose taxes was also 
confirmed, but its laws must be sent to England for 
royal approval. As a matter of course, the leading 
ministers regarded this passing away from the church 
of the civil power as the defeat of the great purpose 



RELIGIOUS DECLENSION AND REFORMATION. 203 

for which their fathers had planted the colonies. 
With all their might they resisted the change, and 
mourned over the opposition of the worldly and the 
indifference of many within the church. They felt 
that if they could no longer rule, righteousness would 
cease. The intrusion of Episcopacy threatened their 
civil liberty as much as their religious supremacy. 
The building of King's Chapel, finished in 1689, ^^^ 
whose erection the ruling powers had in all ways, short 
of direct coercion, sought to compel them to con- 
tribute, they regarded as a menace to their rights. 
The sermons and other published utterances of 
the fathers at that time show that the close of the 
century seemed to them the dawning of the day of 
doom. 

Yet the Important advantages to the churches far 
exceeded these apparent losses, as afterward plainly 
appeared. The diminishing temptation to join the 
church on account of worldly advantages connected 
with it tended to promote its purity. The separation 
of the church from the state restored the inde- 
pendence which already the churches had found to be 
a large price to pay for their pre-eminence in civil 
affairs. Puritan Congregationalism had so firmly 
fixed itself in New England soil that no political 
changes could uproot it or alter its essential character. 
The close of the century found seventy-six Congrega- 
tional churches within the present bounds of Mas- 
sachusetts, beside eight Indian churches. There were 
also two Baptist churches In Boston and one Episcopal, 
and a company of Quakers who had built a small 
meeting house. There were thirty-five churches In 
Connecticut, seven In New Hampshire, and two In 



204 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Maine, all Congregational. In Rhode Island there 
were two or three Baptist churches, and some motley 
communities without definite organizations. The 
predominant, almost the entire organized religious 
life of New England, was still Puritan Congrega- 
tionalism. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 

THE closing- years of the seventeenth century and 
the first decade of the eighteenth witnessed the 
development of conflicting tendencies In church 
government, whose Influences extended through the 
whole of the latter century and beyond It. Many of 
the churches, especially In the frontier settlements, 
were small In numbers, weakened by poverty and the 
Indian wars. They could not have continued to 
exist without financial aid. The Massachusetts Legis- 
lature became In a sense a home missionary society. 
Between 1693 and 1710 more than fifty applications 
for help were made to It from these feeble churches, 
and granted by appropriations from the public 
treasury. Earnest efforts were made to strengthen 
these churches by a closer union of their pastors ; and 
the natural tendency was to Increase the power of the 
ministers and the organizations formed by them over 
the churches. Besides the Inroads of Episcopacy, lax 
tendencies developing with respect to terms of admis- 
sion to membership, the participation in church gov- 
ernment of those not admitted to full communion, 
the weakening of the influence of ministers in the civil 
government, and increasing restlessness under their 
efforts to guide spiritual and social affairs were occa- 
sions of alarm to many who feared in these movements 

205 



206 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the decline of the power of the churches and of vital 
godliness. 

Those most zealous to maintain the old order of 
things turned to ministerial organizations as a means 
of quickening the life of the churches and establish- 
ing their authority more firmly. One of these, the 
Ministers' Convention, had existed from the beginning 
of the Massachusetts colony. It had held annual 
sessions in connection with the opening of the general 
court in May. Its advice had often been asked by 
the court on important matters. The ministers of the 
other colonies had followed its example by meeting 
also in connection with the sessions of the general 
courts. After a time it became the custom to have a 
sermon preached to the convention annually, the day 
after the election of the governor by the lower house, 
in the presence of the governor and the legislature. 
This convention was not a synod, and did not claim to 
be an authoritative body, but it discussed matters most 
prominent in the churches and in the moral concerns 
of the commonwealth. Cotton Mather, in his '' Mag- 
nalia," written in 1698, says that in its meetings ''every 
pastor that meets with singular difficulties has oppor- 
tunity to bring them under consideration. But the 
question most usually now considered is, ' What may 
be further proposed for the preserving and promoting 
of true piety in the land?'" 

Other gatherings of ministers had been regularly 
held in the early history of Massachusetts. There was 
a regular fortnightly meeting of this sort in Boston 
and vicinity as early as 1633. But it met with some 
opposition through fear that it might grow into a 
presbytery, and it appears after some years to have 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 207 

ceased. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge in 1672 said 
that he remembered such meetings in his childhood. 
John Wise in 1710 declared that thirty years before 
that time there were no such meetings. But in the 
autumn of 1690 an association was organized of the 
ministers in the neighborhood of Boston. It was the 
first permanent district association, and seems to have 
been begun by Charles Morton, minister of Charles- 
town. It was modeled after a similar body which had 
arisen in county Cornwall, England, in 1655, but 
which was shortlived. Its meetings were held on 
Monday mornings at Harvard College once in six 
weeks or oftener. Other associations appear to have 
been early formed in Essex County, in the neighbor- 
hoods of Weymouth and Sherburne, and in Bristol 
County. 

These associations, especially the one at Cambridge, 
seem to have been one means of developing the tend- 
encies of two conflicting parties, each of which led 
the churches in different directions further away from 
the earlier Congregationalism. The conservative 
party sought to restrain the independence of the local 
churches and of individual ministers by the influence 
of ministerial, and a little later by church, associations. 
They aimed to do this by making, through these asso- 
ciations, declarations of the will of the churches, by 
limiting the choice of pastors to such persons as met 
their approval, and by guarding against the organi- 
zation of new churches which would favor loose ways. 
As Harvard College was the source from which most 
of the ministers were expected to come, it seemed to 
them especially important to guard it against false 
teaching and undesirable teachers. 



208 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Cotton Mather gives a long list of the topics dis- 
cussed by the Cambridge association, which indicates 
the direction of its interests and its purposes. Among 
them were these : who chooses a minister ; powers of 
ministers in their churches ; rights of a minister to 
officiate in a church not his own ; resignation of 
ministry ; inquiries by pastors into scandals ; use of 
instrumental music and of ceremonies in public 
worship ; relations of church discipline to civil con- 
viction ; powers of councils. The drift of the associa- 
tion toward assuming authority over churches is 
indicated by its deliverances, of which the following 
are illustrations : 

'' Synods, duly composed of messengers chosen by 
those whom they are to represent, and proceeding with 
a due regard unto the will of God in His Word, are 
to be reverenced, as determining the mind of the Holy 
Spirit concerning things necessary to be received and 
practiced in order to the edification of the churches 
therein represented." 

** Synods, being of Apostolical example, recom- 
mended, as a necessary ordinance, it is but reasonable, 
that their judgment be acknowledged as decisive, in the 
affairs for which they are ordained." 

These deliverances referred, so far as form is con- 
cerned, to occasional gatherings, now called ecclesiasti- 
cal councils. 

The leaders of the conservative party were the 
Mathers, father and son. With them were James 
Allen, pastor of the First Church, Boston, John Hig- 
ginson and Nicholas Noyes of Salem, William Hubbard 
of Ipswich, and several others, mostly of the older 
ministers. To these men were opposed a party, mainly 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 209 

of younger ministers, who steadily gained in power. 
John Leverett and WiUiam Brattle were graduates of 
Harvard in 1680, and became tutors in the college in 
1685, the year of Increase Mather's election to the 
presidency. Thomas Brattle, an older brother of 
William, graduated in 1676 and was treasurer of the 
college from 1693 to 1713. Ebenezer Pemberton grad- 
uated in 1 69 1 , and was tutor in the college till 1 700, when 
he became colleague pastor with Samuel Willard in the 
Old South Church. William Brattle became pastor of 
the Cambridge Church in 1696. These four became 
the leaders of the liberal party. Mr. Willard, who in 
fact, though not in name, succeeded Increase Mather 
as President of Harvard when the latter was prac- 
tically deposed in 1701, occupied a position midway 
between the two parties, though leaning toward the 
liberal side. 

The aims of the liberal party were, first, to relieve 
candidates for admission into the church from making 
a public statement of their experience ; second, to 
extend the right of voting for the choice of a pastor to 
all male adults in the congregation, at least to all who 
had been baptized ; third, to extend the right of bap- 
tism to all children presented by any professing Chris- 
tians who would stand sponsors for their religious 
training ; fourth, to bring into the services of public 
worship the reading of the Scriptures without comment 
and the repetition of the Lord's Prayer. Congrega- 
tional churches from the first had resisted, as savoring 
of the Prayer Book, what was called "dumb reading" 
of the Bible and the use of the Lord's Prayer in public 
worship. The feeling between the two parties may be 
traced in church records and in various publications 



2IO CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

issued during this period. Evidently it found expres- 
sion in private conversation and in public meetings, by 
which it was made to grow in intensity. For example, 
when Benjamin Wadsworth w^as ordained colleague 
pastor of the First Church, September 8, 1696, 
Increase Mather gave him the right hand of fellow- 
ship, of which Judge Sewall records in his diary that 
Mr. Mather ''spake notably of some young men who 
had apostatized from New England principles, contrary 
to the light of their education ; was glad that he [Mr. 
Wadsworth] was of another spirit." The next year, 
1697, Cotton Mather published his life of Jonathan 
Mitchell, and his father wrote the preface. In it the 
elder Mather referred to places which had had a faithful 
ministry, but which had become through '' young, pro- 
fane mockers, and scornful neuters, overgrown with 
thorns and nettles, so that the glory of the Lord had 
departed." He especially admonished the tutors in the 
college not to ''become degenerate plants, or prove 
themselves apostate." It was impossible to avoid see- 
ing, in sentences like these, allusions to those persons 
whose views the conservative party opposed. The 
same year, in August, the Second Church in Boston, of 
which the Mathers were pastors, admonished by letter 
the Charlestown church "for betraying the liberties of 
the churches in their late putting into the hands of the 
whole inhabitants the choice of a minister." 

About this time the growing strength of the liberal 
movement led to the organization of a fourth church. 
For a score of years after the first settlement of 
Boston, the First Church stood alone. In 1650 the 
Second, or North Church had been formed simply 
because the first was overcrowded. The Old South 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 211 

had come into existence in 1669 as the result of a 
bitter controversy in the First Church, and though its 
pastor sympathized to some extent with the new party, 
some of its prominent members were strongly con- 
servative. But the First and Second churches strenu- 
ously opposed the movement for another church, and 
they were very large and influential. The liberal 
party felt the necessity of a new church in which the 
new measures could be put into practice. Thomas 
Brattle was wealthy and owned land in what became 
known later as Brattle Square. On this land, which 
he transferred to a body of associates, a new meeting 
house, a plain, unpainted structure, was built. In May, 
1699, an invitation was sent to Benjamin Colman, a 
brilliant young graduate of Harvard, then in England, 
to become pastor of the proposed new church. He 
accepted the call, and having been advised by his 
friends that the Boston churches would not receive 
him with favor, he secured ordination at the hands of 
the London presbytery, under whose authority he was 
then preaching. He arrived in Boston November i, 
1699, and at once began preaching in the new meeting 
house. Those actively interested in the new move- 
ment issued a statement of their views and principles, 
November 1 7, In which they declared their adherence 
to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession, and 
their desire for the fellowship of the churches ; but 
affirmed that those seeking admission into the church 
should be required to relate their religious experience 
to the pastor only ; that children had the right to 
baptism when presented by any professing Christians 
willing to stand sponsor for them ; that all adults who 
contributed to the support of the pastor should have 



212 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

a voice in electing him, and that the devotional read- 
ing of the Scriptures without comment was a proper 
exercise in public worship. They called their state- 
ment a '' manifesto," and for a long time afterward 
their organization bore the name of the Manifesto 
Church. 

The church was formed December 12, and consisted 
of fourteen members, several of whom came from the 
Old South. No council was called, though the new 
church voted to invite the others to keep with it a day 
of fasting and prayer. But in its formation, in the 
reception of its minister without the usual installation 
into office by the co-operation of the neighboring 
churches, and in its declaration of principles, it had 
distinctly departed from time-honored practices of New 
England Congregationalism. James Allen and In- 
crease Mather, representing the First and Second 
churches, replied to the invitation to a fast that they 
could not join in it unless the new organization should 
give the satisfaction which the law of Christ required 
for its disorderly proceedings. John Higginson and 
Nicholas Noyes sent an earnest reproof to the new 
church. The intensity of feeling may be Inferred from 
various records in Cotton Mather's diary, of which 
the following, under date of January 5, 1700, is a 
specimen : 

•* I see Satan beginning a terrible shake unto the 
churches of New England, and the Innovators that 
have set up a new church In Boston, (a new one 
indeed !) have made a day of temptation among us. 
The men are Ignorant, arrogant, obstinate, and full of 
malice and slander, and they fill the land with lies, in 
the representations whereof I am a singular sufferer. 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT, 213 

Wherefore I set apart this day again for prayer in my 
study, to cry mightily unto God." 

Yet there were many who strove for peace. Lieu- 
tenant Governor Stoughton and Judge Sewall, with 
Mr. Willard and others, finally secured the signatures 
of Mr. Colman and his friends to an agreement drawn 
up by William Brattle, and the ministers consented to 
join in a fast recognizing the new church. This was 
held January 31. Mr. Colman preached, and Increase 
Mather also, whose text was " Follow peace with all 
men, and holiness." His theme was that peace must 
be followed so far as it is consistent with holiness. But 
it is evident that he was not persuaded that peace under 
existing conditions was consistent with holiness ; for 
the cessation of hostilities was only a truce. Already 
he had prepared a tract, one of the most remarkable 
in Congregational literature, attacking the new move- 
ment and its leaders. The observance of the fast 
seems to have postponed the publication of the tract, 
but it was issued March i, 1700. The same day 
Cotton Mather wrote in his diary, " The venom of that 
malignant company who have lately built a new church 
in Boston disposes them to add unto the storm of my 
present persecution : for It may be never had any men 
more of that character of grievous revolters, to be 
walking with slanders, than many of that poor people 
have." The tract was entitled ''The Order of the 
Gospel." It mentioned no names ; but its tone and 
temper may be inferred from the following extract : 

'' If we Espouse such principles as these, Namely, 
That Churches are not to Enquire into the Regenera- 
tion of those whom they admit unto their Communion. 
That Admission to Sacraments is to be left wholly to 



214 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the prudence and Conscience of the Minister. That 
Explicit Covenanting with God and with the Church Is 
needless. That Persons not Qualified for Communion 
in special Ordinances shall Elect Pastors of Churches. 
That all Professed Christians have a right to Baptism. 
That Brethren are to have no voice In Ecclesiastical 
Councils. That the Essence of a Minister's call Is 
not in the Election of the People, but in the Cere- 
mony of Imposing hands. That Persons may be 
Established in the Pastoral Office without the Appro- 
bation of Neighboring Churches or Elders ; We then 
give away the whole Congregational cause at once, 
and a great part of the Presbyterian Discipline also." 
Mather characterized Colman, without naming him, 
as *' a wandering Levlte who has no flock." He called 
on the churches to pray that the college might have 
"tutors that will be true to Christ's Interests and ways 
and not hanker after new and loose ways." When the 
Ministers' Convention assembled, May 30, Mather led 
them, in order ''to prevent the great mischief to the 
evangelical Interests that may arise from the unadvised 
proceedings of people to gather churches," to vote to 
republish the deliverance of the Synod of 1662 con- 
cerninor the consociation of churches. He was 
requested by the convention to Issue an address to 
the churches, accompanying this document, urging 
them to see that " the Irregular proceedings of any 
people hereafter, contrary to that advice, be not encour- 
aged." This was one of the ways in which the con- 
servative party hoped to use ministerial organizations 
as a bulwark against threatened innovations. But It 
availed little. An anonymous reply to Increase 
Mather's tract was issued, entitled ** Gospel Order 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 215 

Revived." It was probably the product of Colman 
and some of his friends. It was personal in its attack 
on Mr. Mather ; it ridiculed some of his statements, 
and it affirmed in its preface that the press In Boston 
was so much under Mr. Mather's Influence that the 
printer would not print the tract. 

But the battle was not waged between the churches 
onl)^ As President of Harvard, Increase Mather had 
for years been struggling against opposers. He had 
made many attempts to secure a charter which would 
preserve the college to the interests of the churches, 
but in vain. He was senior pastor of the largest 
church in Boston, and he greatly disliked to live in 
Cambridge. Yet pressure had repeatedly been brought 
to bear on him to live in the neighborhood of the 
college. The General Court had voted, in 1693, 
1695, and again in 1698, that the president should 
reside in Cambridge. The last time the court had 
joined with the proposal an increase of salary. But 
to these votes Mr. Mather made no response. July 
10, 1700, the court positively insisted that he should 
live at Cambridge. He was accordingly persuaded to 
make the change, but in a few weeks he was back in 
Boston, and wrote to Lieutenant Governor Stoughton 
asking that another president be thought of. Prob- 
ably he did not mean to resign his office. He wanted 
to keep it while at the same time he retained his pas- 
torate ; and he intensely desired to be sent again to 
England to secure a new charter for the college. But 
in February 1701, Samuel Willard, pastor of the Old 
South Church, was made Vice President. In Septem- 
ber following, the General Court voted to commit the 
care of the college 'to Mr. Willard, and though Mr. 



2l6 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Mather nominally retained his position as president, 
his control of the college then ended. 

Increase Mather had for many years been the most 
influential minister in Massachusetts. He had with 
great ability represented the interests of the colony in 
England. His services had been of the highest value 
to Harvard College. His defeat and removal from 
authority as its president was a disappointment whose 
bitterness continued with him and his son to the end of 
their lives. It meant to them and their friends the 
surrender of Harvard to men not in sympathy with the 
aims of the conservative party in the churches, and the 
further history of the college showed that their alarm 
and distress were not without reason. 

But the steps they took to guard against the innova- 
tion of new customs led toward other dano^ers to the 
liberty of the churches, not less perilous to Congrega- 
tionalism. And singularly enough, some, at least, of 
the men whom they had opposed joined them in these 
measures to strengthen Congregationalism by bringing 
increased power into associations of ministers and 
churches. In June, 1704, the Ministers' Convention 
issued a circular letter urging pastors, by pastoral visits 
and personal interviews, to fresh endeavors to bring all 
the people to make public covenant with God ; to be 
faithful in church discipline, and not to shield any in 
other churches from discipline ; and to take measures 
" that the associations of the ministers in the several 
parts of the country may be strengthened." This was 
signed by twenty-three ministers, Including Pemberton, 
Colman, James Allen and Cotton Mather. In Novem- 
ber following the Cambridge Association re-enforced 
the letter of the convention, laying especial emphasis 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 21/ 

on the importance of associations of ministers con- 
sulting with one another to promote " a watchful 
regard unto the great interests of religion among us." 
September ii, 1705, a meeting was held In Boston 
of nine delegates, representing the five ministerial 
associations of Boston, Weymouth, Salem, Sherburne 
and Bristol. It is not known how these delegates 
were appointed, or what body propounded the question 
they sought to answer. That question was : " What 
further steps are to be taken, that the councils may 
have due constitution and efficiency in supporting, pre- 
serving and well ordering the interests of the churches 
in the country?" Their answer is known as the 
Proposals of 1705. The plan proposed ministerial 
associations, with stated moderators, having power to 
call meetings : these bodies to try ministers accused of 
scandal of heresy, calling a council if necessary ; to 
examine all candidates for the ministry, the churches 
to employ none without recommendation of an asso- 
ciation ; to answer applications for ministers from 
pastorless churches ; to direct churches how to pro- 
ceed in calling councils, and to discipline ministers 
neglecting these associations. It was also proposed 
that the pastors in each association should^ with ''a 
proper number of delegates," to be chosen annually 
from the churches, constitute a standing council to 
meet as often as once in each year to examine into the 
affairs of the churches and advise what ought to be 
done for their welfare ; that the determinations of the 
standing council should be looked on as decisive 
and final unless appeal should be allowed for further 
hearing ; that if any church disregarded the advice of 
such a council, the churches should withdraw com- 



2l8 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

munion from It, making provision that such of its 
members as submitted to the '* advice '* might be re- 
ceived into other churches. 

In some respects these Proposals evidently were in 
the direction of needed reform. It was important that 
ministers should have proper credentials ; and the 
association of pastors and churches for mutual helpful- 
ness and closer acquaintance commended itself to all. 
The suggestions looking to this end were cordially 
received and to a considerable extent put Into practice. 
The whole body of the Proposals was formally ap- 
proved by the Ministers' Convention May 30, 1706. It 
would seem that Pemberton and Colman favored them 
as heartily as did the Mathers. But standing councils 
never found a foothold in Massachusetts. The Pro- 
posals for them savored altogether too strongly of 
Presbyterianism, of power lodged in permanent rep- 
resentative bodies over both ministers and churches, 
such as Congregationalism had from its beginning 
emphatically repudiated. From the time these Pro- 
posals were issued they were opposed, says Cotton 
Mather, by ''some very considerable persons among 
the ministers as well as of the brethren, who thought 
the liberties of particular persons to be in danger of 
being too much limited and infringed in them." Four 
years after these proposals were approved by the 
Ministers' Convention, they were attacked by John 
Wise of Chebacco, now Essex, in a very clever satire 
entitled " The Churches' Quarrel Espoused, Etc." 
In this treatise Wise sought to stir the churches to a 
sense of the danger to which their liberties w^ere ex- 
posed by this attempt to concentrate power in standing 
authoritative councils; to show that the Proposals 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 219 

were hostile to the polity of Congregationalism, and to 
rouse laymen to defend their rights. He declared that 
these new propositions had that in them which '' smells 
so strong of the pope's cooks and kitchen, . . . that 
they are enough to strangle a freeborn Englishman, 
and much more these churches that have lived in 
such a clear air and under such enlargements so 
lonor a time." 

Wise followed this treatise seven years later by 
another, ''A Vindication of the Government of the 
New England Churches, etc.," in which he affirmed 
that " Democracy is Christ's government in church and 
state." The conclusion of his argument was ''that the 
people or fraternity, under the gospel, are the first sub- 
ject of power ; . . . that a democracy in church or 
state is a very honorable and regular government, ac- 
cording to the dictates of right reason ; that these 
churches in their ancient constitution of church order, 
it being a democracy, are manifestly justified and de- 
fended by the law and light of nature." This little, 
book of one hundred and five pages, with the one 
which preceded it, presents the strongest arguments 
for democratic principles in ecclesiastical and civil gov- 
ernment which the eighteenth century produced. 

These two tracts were reprinted in 1772, and had a 
remarkable influence in kindling the patriotism and 
shaping the principles of those who led in the contest 
for American independence. But their influence at 
the time of their first issue was not less notable. 
Dr. Dexter says that they ''provoked a discussion 
which in time revolutionized the internal philosophy of 
the New England polity, cast out Barrowism with all its 
belongings, and brought back the original Brownism, 



220 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

purged of its connate inconsistencies and harmonized 
and perfected for the great uses of the future." 

But the failure of the movement for stricter eccle- 
siastical government in Massachusetts was accompa- 
nied by the success of a similar movement in Connecti- 
cut, whose beginnings seem to have been connected 
with the founding of Yale College. As early as 1654 
an attempt had been made to plant a college in New 
Haven, and a considerable sum of money had been 
raised by gifts and appropriations from the Legislature 
for that purpose. These efforts, however, resulted 
only in the founding of the Hopkins Grammar School, 
which still continues in that city. But as the colony 
increased in numbers and in wealth toward the end 
of the century, its leading men began to consider again 
the advisability of founding a college for their sons 
in Connecticut. In the year 1700 some decisive steps 
seem to have been taken at a meeting of ministers in 
New Haven and at another meeting in Branford. They 
had the cordial sympathy of the conservative party led 
by the Mathers in Boston, whose grief at their loss of 
control of Harvard seems to have been somewhat miti- 
gated by the hope that an institution representing sound 
doctrine and polity would be built up in the neighbor- 
ing colony. August 7, 1701, five Connecticut ministers 
wrote to Judge Sewall and Isaac Addington of Boston, 
asking for a draft of a charter for the college they pro- 
posed to found. Among them were Abraham Pierson 
of Kllllngworth, who became the first president of 
the college, and Gurdon Saltonstall of New London, 
who was governor of Connecticut from 1707 to 1724. 
Sewall and Addington sent the paper asked for, Octo- 
ber 6, saying : " We should be very glad to hear of 



222 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

flourishing schools and a college at Connecticut, and it 
would be some relief to us against the sorrow we have 
conceived for the decay of them in this province." 
Though Yale College was founded because of an 
independent desire of Connecticut citizens for higher 
education, its beginnings were fostered by the active 
sympathy of those in Massachusetts who were disap- 
pointed at the recent turn of affairs in Harvard. 
There is in the archives of Yale a '' Scheme for a 
College," indorsed in the handwriting of Cotton 
Mather, written before 1701 ; and it was through his 
efforts that Elihu Yale bestowed his gifts on the col- 
lege. It was at Mather's suggestion that the college 
received its name. Not long before the draft for a 
charter was received by the Connecticut ministers 
Increase Mather wrote to two of them, offering sugges- 
tions about the organization of the college. 

The college was started at Saybrook and its trus- 
tees, ten leading ministers, naturally exerted great 
influence over the churches. They did not confine 
themselves, in their meetings, to the business of the 
college, but took into earnest consideration the eccle- 
siastical affairs of the colony. When they met in 
Guilford, in 1703, they prepared and Issued a circular 
letter to the ministers, calling attention to ''the godly 
examples of our brethren In other parts" to preserve 
the people and their posterity from heresy and apos- 
tasy, suggesting that the ministers of Connecticut 
examine the Westminster Confession of Faith and 
also that made by the Synod of Boston in 1680, and 
that the government should be asked to recommend to 
the people the Confession as adopted by the Boston 
Synod. Two years after this letter was Issued the 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 223 

Massachusetts Proposals already described appeared. 
In May, 1708, the Upper House of Connecticut, of 
which the minister. Governor Saltonstall, was a member, 
passed a bill ordering the ministers, with representa- 
tives of the churches, to meet in their county towns on 
the last Monday in June, and prepare ''rules for the 
management of ecclesiastical discipline." Each meet- 
ing was instructed to appoint two or more of its mem- 
bers to be delegates to a joint meeting to be held at 
Saybrook at the next college commencement, ''when 
they shall compare the results of the ministers of the 
several counties, and out of and from them draw a 
form of ecclesiastical discipline." 

This Saybrook Synod, whose members were chosen 
by the instructions of the General Court, was com- 
posed of twelve ministers and four laymen. Eight of 
the ministers were trustees of the college. James 
Noyes and Thomas Buckingham were the moderators. 
The Synod met September 9, 1708. It promptly dis- 
posed of the doctrinal question by recommending, in 
accordance with the suggestion of the ministers' letter 
of 1703, that the Savoy Confession, as adopted by the 
Massachusetts Synod of 1680, should be the doctrinal 
basis of the churches. In taking up the subject of 
church government it turned to the Heads of Agree- 
ment, adopted as a basis of union between Congrega- 
tionalists and Presbyterians in England in 1691. The 
persecutions and legal restrictions imposed on non- 
episcopal ministers and churches in the mother 
country had brought Congregationalists and Presby- 
terians continually nearer together, from the time of 
the end of the Commonwealth in 1660 till the passage 
of the Toleration Act of 1689, which gave to Dis- 



224 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

senters the right to maintain public .worship. Fol- 
lowing that act a movement arose In the vicinity of 
London to unite the two denominations. It appears 
to have been confined to the ministers, the churches 
as such taking no part in It. Increase Mather, then in 
England representing Massachusetts colony, his son 
Cotton tells us was most prominent in the movement, 
and that without him the union would not have been 
effected. It accomplished little In England, but like 
the Savoy Synod Its results were remembered in this 
country long after they were forgotten abroad. The 
Presbyterians and Congregationallsts about London 
soon got Into a doctrinal controversy about a docu- 
ment written nearly fifty years before, but which was 
first published about the time the Union was formed ; 
and the discussion speedily brought the Union to an 
end. The Heads of Agreement were sufificlently vague 
to avoid sharp dissent by either party, but they In the 
main represented the Congregational way at that time. 
They declared that the time and manner of regenera- 
tion are not to be insisted on as evidence of fitness 
for partaking of the Lord's Supper; that neighboring 
ministers should examine candidates for installation 
into the pastorate ; that the ofificers of a church should 
manage Its affairs, but that if the people object to their 
doings efforts should be made to satisfy them ; that 
the churches should associate together for mutual 
advice and help, and that their advice ought to be 
followed. 

These Heads of Agreement were adopted by the 
Saybro.ok Synod, but they did not furnish rules for 
that stricter government of the churches which the 
Legislature had called for. Therefore another docu- 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 225 

ment was prepared, consisting mainly of the draft of 
rules proposed by the New Haven county meeting, 
but modified by suggestions from the Hartford repre- 
sentatives leaning further toward Presbyterlanlsm. It 
consisted of fifteen '' Articles for the Administration 
of Church Discipline." These articles affirmed that 
the elder or elders of a church ought to administer 
church discipline ; that the churches of each county 
should unite In a consociation ; that all cases of scandal 
should be tried before a council of such churches ; that 
all such cases should be decided by the majority 
vote of the council ; that fellowship should be with- 
drawn from any pastor or church refusing to abide by 
such decision ; that in any case of difficulty not satis- 
factorily settled by such a council, an appeal might 
under certain conditions be taken to a larger council ; 
that a church might call a council of the churches with 
which it is consociated, but that an offending brother 
could not have the privilege without the consent of the 
church ; that a council should be permanent till new 
delegates should be chosen. It was also provided that 
permanent associations of ministers should be formed 
to consider the interests of the churches, to examine 
candidates for the ministry, and to look after cases of 
ministerial heresy or scandal. To these associations 
churches wanting pastors were directed to apply, and 
in case any such church should not promptly seek a 
pastor the association should complain of its neglect 
to the General Court. The last of the fifteen articles 
recommended that the several county associations 
should meet annually by delegates in a general asso- 
ciation. 

The similarity of this scheme to that of the Pro- 



226 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. . 

posals of 1705 is apparent. Indeed, the language of 
the fifteen articles is in some parts identical with that 
of the Proposals. The consociations of churches were 
intended to be, in effect, standing councils, and the 
ministerial associations were meant, not only to pre- 
serve the doctrinal and moral purity of the ministry, 
but to guard authoritatively the general interests of the 
churches. In Massachusetts the Proposals received no 
indorsement from the civil authorities. But in Con- 
necticut the General Court, the month following the 
meeting of the Saybrook Synod, made its '* Confession 
of Faith, Heads of Agreement, and Regulations in 
the Administrations of Church Discipline," a part of 
the law of the colony, ordaining '' that all the churches 
within this grovernment that are or shall be thus united 
in doctrine, worship and discipline, be, and for the future 
shall be owned and acknowledged established by law." 
The court ordered the symbols adopted at Saybrook 
to be printed and distributed at the expense of the 
colony. The volume, the first book ever published in: 
Connecticut, was printed in New London in 1710. 

The action of the synod and its confirmation by 
the General Court produced various effects. In each 
county a consociation of churches and an association 
of ministers were formed ; in Hartford County two of 
each. Some individual churches opposed the system, 
with results which in later years caused sharp disputes. 
The New Haven consociation found it too strict and 
the Fairfield consociation too liberal. Each body 
placed on record its own interpretation of the rules 
of church discipline. New Haven inclined toward the 
principles of Congregationalism, laying special empha- 
sis on the Heads of Agreement ; but Fairfield, placing 



CONFLICTING TENDENCIES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 22/ 

a Strict interpretation on the fifteen articles, prac- 
tically constituted itself a court with power to declare 
sentence of excommunication against an offending 
church. The results of this ecclesiastical law will 
appear in the later history when we come to consider 
the Plan of Union entered into between Congregation- 
alists and Presbyterians in 1801. 

The Saybrook Platform ceased to be civil law in 1 784 
when the statutes of Connecticut were revised. When 
the present State constitution was adopted in 181 8 all 
special privileges were withdrawn from the Congrega- 
tional body, and all religious associations in the State 
were left purely voluntary. The true Congregational 
principle then prevailed. But though the churches 
were at that time legally disestablished the consocia- 
tion system survived. In 1841 all except fifteen of the 
two hundred and forty-six Congregational churches of 
Connecticut were consociated, and in 1892 four con- 
sociations, the Fairfield East and West, the New 
Haven East and the Litchfield South, survived, with a 
membership of seventy-one out of three hundred and 
six churches. The authority of these bodies, however, 
has been more and more limited till the ecclesiastical 
government established by the Saybrook Synod has 
practically passed away. The integrity and sufificiency 
of each Congregational church in Connecticut is main- 
tained as in every other State. Yet, as results of the 
movements we have described in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, we have the local and general organiza- 
tions of churches now to be found in every State and 
the associations of ministers, which still. In some parts 
of the country, examine and approve candidates for 
the ministry. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

DURING the entire first quarter of the eighteenth 
century war was being waged, with greater or less 
intensity, between the New England colonies and the 
Indians; and during the preceding twenty-five years, 
since the beginning of King Philip's war in 1674, the 
country had known hardly a single year of peace. 
The French ceased active hostilities from the time of 
the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. But they continued 
to incite the Indians to pillage the English settlements, 
especially along the eastern frontier, and they killed or 
carried into captivity many of the settlers. War in- 
flames the passions of men, and indisposes commu- 
nities to a high degree of spiritual life. 

Internal dissensions also engaged and at times 
absorbed the attention of the people. The adminis- 
tration of Thomas Dudley, as governor of Massa- 
chusetts, from 1702 to 1 715, was one continuous 
struggle betw-een him and the representatives of the 
people in the Lower House, in which some of the 
ministers bore a not inconspicuous part. The career 
of his successor, Samuel Shute, was not much more 
peaceful. Cotton Mather had considerable influence 
in securing Dudley's appointment ; but he afterward 
bitterly regretted it. Dudley had in his earlier years 
spoken of Dr. Increase Mather as his spiritual father; 
and at one time when Dudley was preparing for the 

228 




JONATHAN EDWARDS. 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 229 

ministry, Dr. Mather had expressed to his church the 
hope that he would be his assistant. But when Dudley, 
after a residence of more than ten years in England, 
returned to Massachusetts as governor of the colony, 
he was favorably inclined toward the Episcopal Church. 
He also allied himself with the party in Harvard College 
which opposed the Mathers. Dudley called on Cotton 
Mather very soon after his arrival in Boston in 1702, 
when the latter took occasion to warn the new governor 
to beware of undue influence from Mr. Byfield and 
Mr. Leverett, tutors in the college and leaders of the 
opposing party. But Mather records in his diary that 
'' The wretch went unto those men and told them that 
I had advised him to be no ways advised by them ; 
and inflamed them to an implacable rage against me." 
By 1708 suspicion had grown and spread that Gov- 
ernor Dudley was not trustworthy ; but was carrying 
on illicit dealings with the French, who were waging 
war against New England. Increase Mather wrote 
him a sharp letter accusing him of plotting against the 
liberties of the province, of accepting a bribe, of 
hypocrisy in the affairs of the college and of forsaking 
the worship of God. Cotton Mather followed his 
father's letter with another, of the same date, heaping 
on the governor the same accusations in a larger 
measure. These passionate charges contained enough 
of truth to give some justification to the wrath of the 
Mathers, while Dudley's retort that their letters were 
prompted by their disappointment at losing control of 
the college was also in part true. The election of 
John Leverett to succeed Samuel Willard as Presi- 
dent of Harvard was keenly felt by Cotton Mather, 
who was then, at forty-four years of age, in the 



230 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



prime of his manhood, and thought himself best 
qualified for that office. The bitterness and personal- 
ities of this contest found their way into the pulpits. 
Judge Sewall's diary records of a sermon by Mr. 
Pemberton at the Old South Church about this time, 

'' 'Tis reckoned he 
lashed Dr. Mather 
and Mr. Cotton 
Mather and Mr. 
Bridge for what 
they have written, 
preached and prayed 
about the present 
contest with the 
governor." Such a 
temper on the part 
of the ministers and 
leading laymen was 
not calculated to 
promote revivals oiL 
religion. 

Meanwhile efforts 
to build up Episco- 
pacy were a constant 
source of irritation. 
The Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel, organized in England in 
1 701 for the purpose of Christianizing the American 
Indians, had become in the hands of its promoters a 
society for aiding the Church of England in the Amer- 
ican provinces. Dudley, though he did not sever his 
membership with the Congregational church in Rox- 
bury, allowed himself to be counted as a member of 




i^---- 



OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON. 
ERECTED 1730, 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 23 I 

King's Chapel congregation, and often worshiped 
there. A public discussion began in 1711 between 
Dr. Colnian and Dean Kennett, afterward Bishop of 
Peterborough, England, concerning the purpose of 
the Episcopal authorities to establish Episcopacy in 
America. In 1713 Queen Anne issued an order in- 
tended to secure such an establishment. Up to this 
time King's Chapel was the only Episcopal Church 
in the colony, but efforts were now made to establish 
others at Braintree, Newbury, Marblehead and several 
other places. These efforts caused much ill-feeling 
throughout the province. 

This movement especially awakened alarm by its 
success in Connecticut. Yale College, after years of 
uncertainty as to its location, was fixed in 1 716 at New 
Haven. In 1719 Timothy Cutler of Stratford was 
chosen resident rector of the college, which the 
year before had adopted the name of its benefactor, 
Elihu Yale. But in 1722 Mr. Cutler and one of the 
tutors, Mr. Brown, announced themselves converts to 
the Church of England, and with them two neighbor- 
ing ministers, Mr. Johnson of West Haven and Mr. 
Wetmore of North Haven. Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, 
then governor of Connecticut, publicly disputed with 
Mr. Cutler concerning his position. The alarm was 
increased by the belief that other prominent clergy- 
men had joined in a scheme to go over to Episcopacy 
and take the people of Connecticut with them. Mr. 
Cutler was promptly relieved by the trustees from all 
official connection with the college, and Mr. Brown's 
resignation was accepted. The four converts soon 
went to England, where they received Episcopal orders. 
Brown died soon after. The other three returned to 



232 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

America as Episcopal missionaries of the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel. Dr. Cutler, who had 
received his degree from Oxford and Cambridge 
Universities, became rector, with Mr. Miles, of King's 
Chapel, Boston. The disputes concerning church 
order which arose from these changes were calculated 
to turn the minds of Christians from the subject of 
personal religion and their responsibility for the un- 
converted, into lines of controversy. 

The trustees of Yale voted that thereafter all persons 
elected to the office of rector or tutor should, before 
being accepted, be examined as to "the soundness of 
their faith, in opposition to Arminian and prelatical 
corruptions," and should be required to give their 
assent to the confession of faith of the Saybrook 
Platform. 

In August, 1723, at the age of eighty-four, Dr. 
Increase Mather died, deploring the degeneracy of the 
times and the decay of vital religion, but prophesying 
that Boston would yet be preslerved through the godly- 
people living in it. " There is," he said, "a grievous 
decay of piety in the land and a leaving of the first 
love, and the beauties of holiness are not to be seen as 
they once were. The very interest of New England 
seems to be changed from a religious to a worldly 
one." The feeling of this, one of the greatest of New 
England Puritans, in his declining years, had long been 
shared by many, especially of the ministers. From time 
to time attempts had been made, but without great 
success, to rouse the people to a deeper sense of their 
sins and of their responsibility to God. The legisla- 
tures of Connecticut and Massachusetts had been 
addressed with the hope that they would use their 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 233 

authority to spread the gospel and to command its 
acceptance. In 1714 the General Court of Connecticut 
requested the governor to recommend to the ministers 
to inquire strictly into the state of religion in every 
parish, asking, " What are the sins and evils that pro- 
voke the just majesty of Heaven to walk contrary to us 
in the ways of His providence : that thereby all pos- 
sible means may be used for our healing and recovery 
from our degeneracy." 

An attempt was made by the ministers in Massa- 
chusetts, in 1 715, to move the General Court to call 
a synod to seek remedies for the low state of religion, 
but it failed. In 1725 the final effort was made to use 
the civil government in this country to arouse the 
churches to more effective work. The convention of 
Congregational ministers of Massachusetts, May 27, 
led by Cotton Mather, passed a vote, calling on the 
legislature to summon the churches to meet in a synod 
to consider, *' What are the miscarriages whereof we 
have reason to think the judgments of Heaven upon us 
call us to be more generally sensible, and what may be 
the most evangelical and effectual expedients to put 
a stop unto those or the like miscarriages?" The 
Upper House approved the plan. The Lower House 
refused to concur. Dr. Cutler and Mr. Miles, the 
Episcopal clergymen of Boston, remonstrated, and 
both Houses rebuked their remonstrance. But the 
subject was postponed to the next session of the Legis- 
lature, and before that time the appeals of Cutler and 
Miles to their superiors in England had brought such 
influence to bear on the English government that the 
Lord Justices declared that a synod could not be held 
without the King's consent, and intimated that further 



234 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

efforts In that direction might be followed by prosecu- 
tion for misdemeanor. Thus, by the Interference of 
a religious denomination which was an exotic In New 
England, the great service was unintentionally ren- 
dered to the Congregational churches of Massachu- 
setts of leading them to abandon hope of reviving 
their spiritual power through action of the civil author- 
ities. This, In a way quite different from that Intended, 
was one Important step toward the great revival of 
religion which was to follow, not many years later. 

Cotton Mather had for a long time been most 
zealous among the leaders who were laboring and 
praying for a revived Interest In personal religion. He 
died February 13, 1728, at the age of sixty-five years. 
He was the most prolific author in the history of New 
England Puritanism. His unrestrained frankness In 
committing his feelings and experiences to writing, and 
his great self-esteem, have given to his critics abundant 
opportunities to misjudge him, of which they have 
freely taken advantage. His publications, during his- 
whole public life, about three hundred and eighty In 
all, appeared with such regularity and frequency as 
almost to entitle him to be called the journalist of his 
time. Certainly no man of that age surpassed him In 
appreciation of the power of the press. During the 
last four years of his life at least fifty publications were 
Issued by him, an average of more than one every 
month, and at some periods the number was consider- 
ably greater. He did a great service to New England, 
not only by portraying for coming generations living 
pictures of the times, but by recording In permanent 
form the important events of history and the principles 
w^hich were then controlling In church and state. Mak- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 235 

Ing all allowance also for his faults of egotism and of 
temper, he was a man of great intellectual ability, 
devout spirit and strong affections. The impression 
he made on New England life was deep, abiding and 
in the main salutary, the work of a leader chosen and 
honored by God. 

But at the time Cotton Mather died there was 
already beginning to be known a young man who 
stands without a rival in the religious history of the 
eighteenth century, the peer of the greatest theolo- 
gians of any age, and whose influence in Great Britain 
came to be, perhaps, not less potent than in America. 
Jonathan Edwards was born at East Windsor, Conn., 
in 1703, where his father, a graduate of Harvard, was 
long an honored minister, and his mother was the 
daughter of Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, 
Mass. He graduated from Yale when not quite seven- 
teen, with the highest graduating honors which that 
young institution could bestow. After two years spent 
at New Haven in theological studies he had a brief 
pastorate with a newly organized Presbyterian church 
in New York City, and then for two years, 1724-26, 
he was a tutor at Yale, following the withdrawal of 
Dr. Cutler and Mr. Brown. 

Like Cotton Mather, Edwards left to posterity a 
diary of his early years ; but, unlike Mather's, it is 
uncolored by any appearance of consciousness that he 
is displaying himself for the admiration of others. It 
is a succession of pictures of a ^^outhful soul whose 
eyes of brilliant but chastened imagination look unfal- 
teringly toward God, and whose aspirations after the 
highest ideals revealed in the Bible seem never to tire. 
His early studies were philosophical, and had he pur- 



236 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

sued them as a profession he might have rivaled 
Kant, his contemporary and the greatest philosopher 
of that century. But his idea of God was ever con- 
trolling in his mind. He had rapturous visions of the 
excellences of the divine nature, but visions did not 
divert him from the practical purpose to become trans- 
formed into the divine likeness, and to that end he 
regulated the habits of thought, recreation, study, of 
his whole life. 

Early in 1727 Edwards was ordained as colleague 
pastor with his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, 
at Northampton. Stoddard was then eighty-three 
years old, and had held his pastorate since 1672. He 
had long been a conspicuous leader, not only in local 
affairs but in the wider interests of the churches 
throughout New England. His ministry had been 
marked by five periods of revival, and in its entire 
course had been able, devout and fruitful. The 
Northampton church was, in wealth and numbers, 
the strongest in Massachusetts outside of Boston. 
Edwards was rarely fortunate in his marriage. Sarah 
Pierrepont of New Haven, who became his wife at the 
early age of seventeen, had as high an ideal as her 
husband and as practical a purpose to realize it ; and 
she saw in him a nearer approach to it than in any 
other human being. The attractions of her person 
were not less remarkable than those of her mind and 
spirit. She made a home renowned for its charms 
and its hospitality, which witnessed eloquently to its 
guests the advantages of married life. When George 
Whitefield had been entertained there for some days, 
he wrote in his diary that Mr. Edwards *'is a son 
himself and hath also a daughter of Abraham for 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 237 

his wife. A sweeter couple I have not seen. . . 
She caused me to renew those prayers which for 
some months I have put up to God, that He 
would send me a daughter of Abraham to be my 
wife. I find upon many accounts it is my duty to 
marry." 

For eight years Edwards preached at Northampton 
before he witnessed that first spiritual quickening in 
his congregation which marks the beginning of a new 
era in Christian history both in this country and in 
Great Britain. It is not difficult to describe the back- 
ground of religious conditions on which shone the 
brilliant logic and fervent appeals of the young 
minister which burned conviction into the souls of his 
hearers, melted them to repentance, and lifted them 
into ecstasy in the new sense of being forgiven for their 
sins and received into the favor of God. During the 
half century in which the provinces had been dis- 
tracted and impoverished by wars, the churches had 
not willingly sunk into spiritual indifference. Many 
of their pastors had been faithful and diligent in 
preaching the gospel. They had made use of calami- 
ties large and small to direct attention to the dis- 
pleasure of God because of the sins of the people. 
The evils of war had emphasized their appeals. In 
the terrible epidemic of smallpox of 1721 there were 
over five thousand cases and seven hundred and sixty- 
one deaths within three months in the town of Boston, 
and other towns suffered in like proportion. The 
earthquake in 1727 furnished an impressive theme. 
Days of fasting and prayer from time to time are 
recorded for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There 
were in local communities from time to time seasons 



238 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of spiritual refreshing in which considerable numbers 
were added to the churches. 

But the efforts after revival laid constantly increasing 
emphasis on outward reformation, till the idea came to 
prevail that by diligent attention to good works men 
could win the favor of God and gain entrance into 
heaven. The history of the first thirty years of the 
eighteenth century furnishes abundant illustrations of 
this tendency. In 1711 the Hartford North Associa- 
tion, to arrest religious declension, recommended its 
churches to call on all those in their parishes to own 
the baptismal covenant, if they had not yet done so ; 
to urge those who had owned it to renew their con- 
sent ; and to call on all the people to keep the Sabbath, 
attend public worship regularly, to observe the divine 
ordinances, to avoid profanity, immorality, drunken- 
ness and lying ; to be honest in business, to maintain 
family discipline ; to obey their superiors in the family, 
church and commonwealth, and to watch over one 
another that all might be stimulated to perform their 
duties as Christians. In 171 5 the General Court of 
Connecticut passed an act prompting judges and 
justices of the peace to suppress immoralities ; direct- 
ing selectmen to see that families without Bibles sup- 
plied themselves, and were " furnished with a suit- 
able number of orthodox catechisms, and other good 
books of practical godliness, viz., such as treat on, 
encourage and duly prepare for the right attendance 
on that great duty, the Lord's Supper." 

This last clause still further illustrates the formal 
orthodoxy, if it may be so called, of that period. The 
Halfway Covenant had taught the people that they 
could have acceptable relations with God without hav- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 239 

ing evidence that their lives were renewed by His 
Spirit, and that performing religious duties would lead 
to spiritual renewal. Those who had been baptized 
were regarded as inheriting through Christian parents 
relations of sonship toward God. They were expected 
not to wait for the testimony of personal experience, 
but to bring their children to the church for baptism, 
and to make for themselves the promises of regenerate 
souls. The next logical step in this direction was to 
urge upon all persons, whether renewed or not, that 
participation in the Lord's Supper was a duty. For 
many years after the Halfway Covenant became com- 
mon practice this conclusion was avoided ; those who 
owned the covenant while admittedly unregenerate 
being excluded from the Lord's Supper. But the dis- 
tinction in many places gradually faded away ; and in 
1707 Mr. Stoddard, in a sermon which he published, 
maintained that " the Lord's Supper is a converting 
ordinance." The sermon provoked earnest discussion, 
and in 1709 Mr. Stoddard, in reply to the arguments 
against It by Dr. Increase Mather and others, pub- 
lished his '* Appeal to the Learned ; being a Vindica- 
tion of the Right of Visible Saints to the Lord's 
Supper, though they be destitute of a Saving Work of 
God's Spirit on their Hearts." This position, that 
there were saints who had not been born anew, though 
it was not universally accepted, was affirmed by able 
and godly leaders among the churches, and it exten- 
sively prevailed. 

The churches, thus receiving increasing numbers who 
did not claim to be converted, grew lax In discipline. 
The ruling sentiment put honor on ..church member- 
ship. To neglect religious duties lowered persons 



240 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

socially. The advantages of belonging to the church 
moved many to seek fellowship in it who did not claim 
fellowship with God. Under such circumstances the 
churches themselves could not be expected to feel 
deeply the danger of the unconverted, nor the sense of 
their guilt. They sought, indeed, to persuade men to 
prepare themselves for heaven. But present business 
and pleasures were pressing, and when men were per- 
suaded that they could, at their own will, prepare them- 
selves for heaven, they put off doing it for what they 
more enjoyed doing ; and in spite of legislatures and 
exhortations of ministers, worldliness increased and 
morals grew lax. It is probable, also, that men found 
their way into the ministry with whom the saving of 
souls was not the overmastering purpose, but who de- 
sired that office because it was an honored and influ- 
ential profession. There was, no doubt, some reason 
for the charge made by Whitefield and others that the 
churches were filled with unconverted ministers. In a 
word, the churches were busy, so far as they were busy 
at all, in persuading men to do, in order to become 
Christians, what renewed souls love to do because they 
are Christians. Thus there grew up, Ln part at least 
as the result of the Halfway Covenant, what was then 
called ''the new-fashioned divinity," "the Arminian 
scheme of justification by our own virtues." 

Into these conditions the preaching of Jonathan 
Edwards came as a purifying stream from a divine 
fountain. He accepted at first the condition of the 
Northampton church as he found it under the long 
administration of his grandfather. He received to the 
Lord's Supper those who did not profess to have been 
converted, though in due time he vigorously opposed 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 24 1 

the practice. But his lofty visions of God and His 
holiness, his profound sense of his own unworthiness, 
his meditation on the solemn and somber questions 
raised in dealing with the religious experiences of his 
people, steadily tended to define and confirm In his 
mind those interpretations of Calvinism by which he 
shaped anew and largely informed New England the- 
ology. When only twenty-eight years of age, in 1731, 
he preached by invitation In Boston a sermon which 
made a profound impression, and to whose excellence 
the ministers of that town bore formal testimony. Its 
title was '* God glorified in Man's Dependence." It 
was a solemn affirmation of the sovereign right of God 
to give or withhold salvation according to his pleasure. 
It presented the cardinal principle of Edwards' the- 
ology. In his view man, because of the fall, is totally 
undeserving of the divine favor. God is under no 
obligation whatever to save anyone. He has deter- 
mined, of His mere gracious condescension, to save 
some persons. Upon others He has determined to pro- 
nounce the sentence of reprobation to eternal death. 
'' His sovereignty is involved in His freedom to take 
whom He pleases, and to leave whom He pleases to 
perish." Man has no power of himself to please God. 
Those whom God has chosen to salvation are the sub- 
jects of His special grace. Upon all others and in all 
the spheres of ordinary life God exercises His common 
grace, but this exerts no saving efficacy. To His elect 
God reveals His will by the impartatlon of divine and 
supernatural light, by His Spirit dwelling in them com- 
municating His thought to them. This is the imme- 
diate action of the Holy Spirit on the human soul. 
That light God withdrew from the human race when 



242 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERX^CA. 

our first parents fell. He restores it only to those 
whom He has chosen to salvation. All others are by 
their nature and determination opposed to God, in 
utter and hopeless spiritual darkness. The common 
grace of God operates to restrain human wickedness so 
that men do not fully realize their enmity to Him. 
But when this restraint is removed from unrenewed 
men, as it will be in the next world, they will find them- 
selves in the flames of hell, forever hating God in their 
utter misery, while He in turn hates them as essentially 
hateful. 

But while as an infinite sovereign God may pardon 
or reject whom He will, as the moral governor of the 
universe it is necessary that His justice should receive 
satisfaction from those whom He redeems. To this 
end Jesus Christ died, that the elect might receive the 
forgiveness of sins while the honor and righteousness 
of God are vindicated. Christ bore a penalty which is 
equivalent to the endless suffering of those whom He 
has redeemed. Therefore, their debt is paid. The 
righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner who 
commits himself to Him. ''To him that worketh not, 
but believeth on Him that justlfieth the ungodly, his 
faith is counted for righteousness." 

This brief and necessarily imperfect summary of 
Edwards' theology has for its center the doctrine which 
he preached most effectively in rousing men's con- 
sciences and bringing them to conviction of their sins, 
justification through faith alone. No one could do 
anything to win the favor of God. No one could tell 
whether or not he was one of the eldct. But an awak- 
ened sense of guilt was an evidence that the Holy 
Spirit was operating on the soul. When the awak- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 243 

ened sinner confessed his utter ill desert, freely ad- 
mitted that God would be just if He should condemn 
him to eternal misery, and cast himself at the feet of 
Christ for pardon, then in that self-renunciation there 
might come to him the sense of inward peace which is 
the assurance that he is accepted of God and that his 
sins are forgiven. The more intense his conviction of 
his own sinfulness and the deeper his despair, the 
greater his joy when the burden of guilt was removed, 
the fear of punishment at an end, and the prospect of 
eternal happiness in serving God in heaven unfolded 
on his view. 

One can imagine the effect of proclaiming such 
doctrines as these to a community persuaded that 
religion consisted in performing faithfully common 
duties and in regular attendance on church ordinances, 
and assured that those who did these things without 
reproach from their neighbors were in the way to 
attain eternal life. From some lips these doctrines 
might have fallen unheeded. From others they might 
have provoked only opposition. But Edwards was a 
unique personality. His towering intellect was re- 
enforced by a vivid imagination, and his personal 
influence was emphasized by a majestic purity of life. 
He was, in the ancient Bible sense of the word, a seer. 
He saw God in the infinite grandeur of His holiness, 
and he saw in himself the depths of unworthiness 
which he described as existing in others. He saw 
himself a sinner redeemed through infinite mercy, and 
in loving self-renunciation he cast himself at the feet 
of Jesus Christ his Redeemer. To his vision eternal 
punishment was awful beyond description, and all man- 
kind except the elect were doomed to it ; while his 



244 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

soul was enraptured with the felicity of heaven, and he 
believed that he was an instrument in the hands of 
God to bring into heaven those who were chosen to 
salvation. 

The effects of his preaching began to be manifested 
in Northampton toward the close of the year 1734. 
His themes at this time were justification by faith, the 
justice of God in condemning sinners, the excellence 
and glory of Christ, and the duty of seeking with all 
the heart the kingdom of God. Remarkable instances 
of conversion began to appear. One of the earliest 
was that of a gay young woman, who came to him 
" giving evidence of a heart truly broken and sancti- 
fied." Soon the subject of personal religion became 
the chief topic of conversation in the town. It ab- 
sorbed alike the attention of business men, of domestic 
circles and of the children. Meetings in private 
houses for prayer and religious conversation were 
thronged. Through the winter and the spring follow- 
ing the interest constantly grew till Northampton 
seemed to have become almost a heaven on earth. 
Edwards gives a picture of it on which one loves ta 
linger. He says : " There were remarkable tokens of 
God's presence in almost every house. . . Our public 
assemblies were then beautiful ; the congregation was 
alive in God's service, everyone earnestly intent on the 
public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words 
of the minister as they came from his mouth ; the as- 
semblies in general were from time to time in tears while 
the word was preached ; some weeping with sorrow 
and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity 
and concern for the souls of their neighbors. Our 
public praises were then greatly enlivened : God was 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 245 

then served In our psalmody in some measure in the 
beauty of holiness." 

The revival spread to neighboring towns, and pro- 
duced in them effects similar to those in Northampton. 
Several towns in Connecticut also experienced at 
about the same time gracious visitations of the Holy 
Spirit. The work was there even more extensive than 
in Massachusetts. Edwards became intensely inter- 
ested in studying the experiences through which the 
converts passed. He found them all characterized by 
certain marked outlines, though they varied in degrees 
of intensity. Inquirers were first aroused to a sense of 
the awful danger of their condition and the necessity 
of escaping from it at once. Then they became per- 
suaded of their helplessness in their sins, their entire 
dependence on God and their absolute need of a divine 
mediator. Then came gracious manifestations of the 
mercy of God when Christ revealed Himself to the 
redeemed soul. Edwards warned those under convic- 
tion of sin against deceiving themselves with false 
hopes. He emphasized spiritual joys and delights as 
evidence of the genuineness of conversion. He took 
it for granted that those who had been born anew 
would live in obedience to God. 

At about this time, on the request of Dr. Colman 
of Boston, Edwards wrote an account of the revival, 
which was printed and copies were sent to England 
and Scotland. So great interest was awakened that he 
was induced to write a fuller description with the title, 
'' Narrative of Surprising Conversions," which, with 
several of his sermons, was published in England and 
again in Boston. It was read by multitudes on both 
sides of the ocean. It kindled spiritually great numbers. 



246 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

not only of the laity but of the ministers. Though 
the immediate effects of the revival subsided in the 
early summer of 1735, its influences continued, pre- 
paring the way for the far more extensive revival 
of 1740-42. 

George Whitefield first visited the American colonies 
in 1738. He came to Georgia by the invitation of 
John and Charles Wesley, then laboring In that State. 
In the autumn of the same year he went home again to 
receive ordination as a priest in the Church of Eng- 
land and to raise funds for an orphanage in Georgia. 
Although he remained in England but nine months 
his preaching there aroused great interest, especially 
among the poor, and intense opposition from Episco- 
pal bishops and clergy. His doctrines of the new 
birth and justification by faith were welcomed as good 
news by the coal miners, but were attacked by ministers 
in sermons and pamphlets. In November, 1739, White- 
field arrived in Philadelphia. In that city, in New 
York and in surrounding towns he preached to great 
crowds, and many persons were converted. He col- 
lected considerable sums for the orphanage, and 
spent the winter in the South. By invitation of 
several ministers he visited Boston, arriving there 
September 18, 1740. New England was prepared 
for his coming. His fame had preceded him. 
His picture Is thus drawn by one who saw and 
heard him : 

'' He is of a sprightly, cheerful temper : acts and 
moves with great agility and life. The endowments of 
his mind are very uncommon ; his wit is quick and 
piercing, his imagination lively and florid ; and both, as 
far as I can discern, are under the direction of an exact 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 247 

and solid judgment. He has a most ready memory, 
and I think speaks entirely without notes. He has 
a clear and musical voice, and a wonderful com- 
mand of it. He uses much gesture, but with great 
propriety. Every accent of his voice, every motion 
of his body speaks ; and both are natural and un- 
affected." 

The same person thus summarizes the substance of 
his preaching : 

'' He loudly proclaims all men by nature to be under 
sin, and obnoxious to the wrath and curse of God. 
He maintains the absolute necessity of supernatural 
grace to bring men out of this state. He asserts the 
righteousness of Christ to be the alone cause of the 
justification of a sinner ; that this is received by faith ; 
that faith is the gift of God ; that where faith is 
wrought it brings the sinner, under the deepest sense 
of his guilt and unworthiness, to the footstool of 
sovereign grace to accept of mercy as the free gift of 
God only for Christ's sake. He asserts the absolute 
necessity of the new birth ; that this new production 
is solely the work of God's blessed Spirit ; that 
wherever it is wrought it is a permanent, abiding 
principle, and that the gates of hell shall never pre- 
vail against it." 

A brief description of the effect of Whitefield's 
preaching on an audience will prepare us to understand 
in some degree the impression of his first visit to New 
England : 

'' I never in my life saw so attentive an audience. 
Mr. Whitefield spake as one having authority. All he 
said was demonstration, life, and power. The people's 
eyes and ears hung on his lips. They greedily devoured 



248 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

every word. I came home astonished. Every scruple 
vanished ; and I said within myself, surely God is 
with this man." In his prayers, which were extem- 
poraneous, as in his speech, an intense fervor kindled 
the devotions of those whom he led to the throne 
of grace. 

But this young man, twenty-six years old, with all his 
gifts and graces, could never have stirred New Eng- 
land as he did, had not the Holy Spirit prepared the 
hearts of the people to hear his message, and accom- 
panied it with divine power. The first Sunday after 
his arrival in Boston he preached to a crowded audi- 
ence in Brattle Street meeting-house, and later to a 
great throng on the common. The next day at the 
New South meeting-house a panic occurred during the 
service, and so great was the crowd that in attempting 
to escape from the building five persons were killed. 
He preached at Harvard College, and he made excur- 
sions to the neighboring towns. Inquirers everywhere 
pressed on him for personal conversation concerning 
their salvation. He collected generous sums for his 
orphanage in Georgia. He preached his farewell ser- 
mon on Boston Common, October 12, to an audience 
which he estimated at thirty thousand. Governor 
Belcher bade him farewell, with tears entreating him to 
pray for him. Whitefield, preaching at prominent points 
on the way, arrived at Northampton on the following 
Friday, and spent Sunday with Jonathan Edwards, 
preaching for him with profound effect. Thence he 
made his way through Connecticut, preaching to thou- 
sands at Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, and other 
places, arriving at New York October 30. In that 
city, and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he spent 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 249 

three weeks preaching daily, and then returned to 
Georgia. He recorded in his diary that in the seventy- 
four days since he had landed at Newport, R. I., he had 
preached one hundred and seventy-five times, besides 
exhorting frequently in private. The effects of his 
visit among the Congregational churches of New 
England will be described in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GREAT AWAKENING {continued^. 

THE visit of George Whitefield to New England 
covered about five weeks. With all the excite- 
ment which attended it and its profound impression on 
the people, it can hardly be regarded as more than the 
most prominent incident occurring in that revival which 
characterized the history of Congregationalism in the 
eighteenth century. It has even been suggested that 
the revival was delayed by the expectation of his com- 
ing; many, in whose hearts a gracious work had begun, 
waiting with the feeling that they would be called to 
declare it when he should arrive. 

Thomas Prince, then the junior pastor of the Old 
South Church, aided his son to collect and publish, in 
1743 and 1744, extended accounts of the revival, Includ- 
ing events occurring both In this country and In Eng- 
land and Scotland. In Boston, after Whitefield's de- 
parture, the attendance on the regular services of the 
churches was greatly increased. A special Tuesday 
evening lecture was established at Brattle Street meet- 
ing-house, which attracted large audiences for many 
months. The governor, at the request of the House 
of Representatives, appointed December 3 as a day of 
fasting and prayer. December 13 Gilbert Tennent, a 
Presbyterian minister of New Jersey, arrived In Boston. 
His father and his three brothers were ministers, and 
the whole family were so prominent in the revival then 

250 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 25 1 

in progress In the region where they labored that it 
was known as the '* Tennent revival." 

Gilbert Tennent was one of the most powerful 
revival preachers ever known in this countr)^ But his 
manner was quite in contrast with that of Whitefield. 
Mr. Prince says of him : *' He seemed to have no 
regard to please the eyes of his hearers with agreeable 
gesture, nor their ears with delivery, nor their fancy 
with language ; but to aim directly at their hearts and 
consciences, to lay open their ruinous delusions, show 
them their numerous secret, hypocritical shifts in re- 
ligion, and drive them out of every deceitful refuge 
wherein they made themselves easy with the form of 
godliness without the power." He preached the terrors 
of the law to sinners, *' the awful danger they were 
every moment in of being struck down to hell, and 
being damned forever, with the amazing miseries of 
that place of torment." But he was most effective in 
''laying open their many vain and secret shifts and 
refuges, counterfeit resemblances of grace, delusive 
and damning hopes, their utter impotence, and 
impending danger of destruction." 

Mr. Tennent preached in and about Boston for two 
months and a half. His audiences everywhere were 
large, the people earnest and solemn. Many were 
brought under deep conviction of sin, though without 
any demonstrations of crying out or fainting, such as 
had occurred in other places. He preached his fare- 
well sermon March 2, 1841, in the Brattle Street meet- 
ing-house, and the parting between him and his hearers 
was affectionate and sad. The religious interest, which 
was deep and general through the winter, still further 
increased after his departure. Within three months 



252 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Mr. Cooper had six hundred inquirers who came to 
ask his spiritual counsel, and Mr. Webb more than one 
thousand. Crowded services were held In several of 
the churches on Tuesday and Friday evenings ; and on 
the other evenings there were nearly thirty meetings in 
different parts of the town. During the entire year 
the ministers were constantly employed in preaching to 
crowded gatherings In private houses. Large numbers 
joined the churches, though less than would have done 
so had not Mr. Tennent very earnestly cautioned the 
people against taking the Lord's Supper unless they 
had satisfying evidence that they had been saved. 
The very face of the town seemed to be strangely 
altered. Those who had been 'for some time absent 
and returned to Boston noted with surprise the strange 
look and carriage of the people. Good order and 
sobriety everywhere prevailed. '' Thus successfully," 
says Mr. Prince, " did this divine work, as above 
described, go on without any lisp, as I remember, of 
a separation, either in this town or province, for above 
a year and a half after Mr. Whitefield left us." 

The same holy and happy influences were working 
In other towns throughout the whole of New England. 
Everywhere there were remarkable evidences of the 
special presence and blessing of the Holy Spirit. In 
Connecticut the interest in religion was even deeper 
than in any other section of the country. Ministers 
were physically unable to satisfy the demands made 
on them for preaching and for religious conversation. 
Many of them visited and labored for some time in 
other parishes besides their own. Many inquirers 
came to them for spiritual advice, sometimes from 
distant places. Many professing Christians became 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 253 

persuaded that they had been building on false founda- 
tions, and sought earnestly for deeper experience and 
more satisfying evidence that they were born again. 
The additions to the churches were frequent and 
numerous, and religion was the one chief topic, not 
only in the churches, but in the homes and by the 
wayside. 

But within little more than a year the good influ- 
ences of the revival began to be checked, not less by 
the Indiscretions of some of its promoters than by the 
opposition of -its enemies. Whitefield was a man of 
intense emotions, and he awakened like feelings in 
others. His journal abounds in descriptions of great 
excitement produced by his preaching. '' Shrieking, 
crying, weeping and wailing were to be heard in every 
corner." "In every part of the congregation some- 
body or other began to cry out, and almost all melted 
Into tears." He counted too much on these displays of 
feeling as evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit. 
Some of his followers exaggerated them far more than 
he did as evidences of the spiritual power of their 
preaching and exhorting. 

Whitefield had also spoken strongly of unconverted 
ministers as hindering the work. His own preaching 
had such effect that he thought those who did not preach 
with similar power must be unconverted. In the imme- 
diate interest kindled by his preaching and presence, 
the pastors were moved to examine their own hearts 
rather than to resent the criticism. When, however, 
his journal, kept during his visit to Boston, was pub- 
lished, containing severe reflections on some of the 
ministers, it awakened resentment. But while he 
made sad mistakes in some of his statements about 



254 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

them, It must not be forgotten that he was at times as 
unsparing in his criticisms of himself. He says in his 
journal of an experience in New York : " I could only 
lie before the Lord and say I was a poor sinner and 
wonder that God could be gracious to such a wretch." 

Gilbert Tennent had also spoken severely against 
ministers who did not join heartily in the revival 
movement, charging them with being unregenerate. 
In New Jersey he had with his father and brothers led 
a movement in which sharp censures were made upon 
ministers who opposed them, and which resulted in a 
division of the synod to which they belonged. A 
disposition to criticise ministers was developed among 
some who were most deeply affected by the revival. 
These sentiments caused the dismission of Samuel 
Mather from the pastorate of the Second Church, Bos- 
ton, in December, 1741. He had been charged with 
vagueness in preaching on the doctrine of regeneration 
and with discouraging the work of conversion. But 
the real ground of complaint against him was want 
of sympathy with some features of the revival. With 
him ninety-three members withdrew from the Second 
Church and formed a new organization. 

James Davenport, a minister of Southold, L. I., had 
been much moved by hearing of Whitefield's labors 
and had visited him in New Jersey. Whitefield, who 
was not a profound judge of men, gave him the warmest 
commendation. A little later Davenport was preach- 
ing in company with the Tennents. In 1741 he went 
to Connecticut, and by his denunciation of ministers 
as unconverted wrought mischievous dissensions in a 
number of communities. In New Haven he secured a 
following which organized a separate church. He was 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 255 

brought before the General Association at Hartford 
about June i, 1 742, on complaint of having stirred up dis- 
order in Stratford. The same charge was also brought 
against Benjamin Pomeroy of Hebron. The Connecti- 
cut Legislature had just passed laws forbidding any 
minister to preach in any other parish except his own 
without the consent of the minister and church of the 
parish ; and forbidding any person to preach in the 




RiPON COLLEGE, RiPON, WIS. {page 375). 

state without license from a regular body of ministers, 
as provided for in the Saybrook Platform. This 
unwarrantable method of suppressing disorders only 
increased them. Pomeroy and Davenport were 
arrested ; the charge against the former was dismissed. 
Davenport was adjudged Insane and sent back to 
Long Island. 

But he soon made his way to Boston. His first 
Sunday In that vicinity, In June, 1742, he spent at 
Charlestown, attending church In the morning, but 
remaining away In the afternoon because he feared 
that the minister was not converted. On Monday he 
attended the Ministers' Association In Boston at their 
invitation, and gave them an account of his work. 



256 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

They had already heard of him, of his habit of 
demanding ministers to give accounts of their religious 
experience, and of his pronouncing many of them un- 
regenerate. They promptly published a declaration to 
the effect that while they did not question his piety 
they disapproved of his methods, and that they would 
not invite him to preach in their pulpits. Davenport 
began to preach on the Common, and retorted that 
most of the ministers were unconverted and were 
''leading their people blindfold to hell." He was 
arrested and brought before the grand jury late in 
August for uttering slanderous reports about ministers, 
and the indictment against him was sustained ; but 
being tried by the court he was adjudged to be not of 
sound mind and therefore not guilty. He was released 
from custody and not long after departed. In this 
action Massachusetts was more generous in her treat- 
ment than Connecticut. 

But he had diverted the attention of the people 
from concern about their own conversion, and had 
sown seeds of discord among the churches. He 
wrought much greater mischief in Connecticut. 
The next March he appeared at New London, 
where he and his followers publicly burned a number 
of books written by Increase Mather, Colman, 
Sewall and others, declaring that the smoke as- 
cended like the smoke of the torments of their 
authors in hell. Davenport represented a class who 
claimed to have special illumination from the Holy 
Spirit, who discredited human learning, delighted in 
hearing the noisy exhortations of those who felt 
themselves moved by the Spirit to speak, and regarded 
efforts to repress outcries and displays of physical 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 257 

excitement at meetings as quenching the Spirit. They 
made much of visions and trances. They thought they 
saw Christ bleeding on the cross, or amid the glories of 
heaven. Ministers who did not approve of these expe- 
riences and visions they declared unconverted, and also 
laymen who expressed doubts of their own conversion. 
It does not appear that any of the Connecticut pas- 
tors gave countenance to these " impulses," as they 
were called. But in several places many of the 
church members were carried away by these delusions, 
and after a time withdrew and formed independent 
organizations. To repress such disorders the Con- 
necticut General Court in May, 1 743, added to its 
legislation of the preceding year by repealing the act 
of 1708 allowing persons, under certain conditions, to 
worship according to their own views. In October 
another act was passed, imposing increased penalties 
on those who should preach without being duly 
authorized to do so. Under these acts the State 
authorities proceeded to real persecution of what were 
called '' New Lights." Justices and other officers who 
were classed with them were removed from office. 
Many ministers were accused of preaching Arminian- 
ism, and dissensions among the clergy rapidly increased. 
Two young men, brothers, were expelled from Yale 
College for attending a meeting of Separatists. Two 
ministers, John Owen of Groton and Benjamin Pome- 
roy, were arrested for preaching In parishes other than 
their own without invitation from the ministers of 
those parishes. Pomeroy, whose offense was scarcely 
even technical, was heavily fined and suspended from 
the ministry. Nor was he restored until by act of the 
legislature In May, 1748. Pastors suspended church 



258 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

members from communion for going to hear revival 
preachers ; and some of those suspended were kept 
for many years from the Lord's Supper. In this 
unhappy controversy both parties forgot the Golden 
Rule and the laws of Christian courtesy. Ten or 
more Separatist churches were organized in eastern 
Connecticut, though a large proportion, probably the 
majority of the supporters of the revival, disapproved 
of this movement to withdraw from the churches, and 
deplored its excesses. In 1744 James Davenport pub- 
lished a confession and retraction of his errors, but 
those who had been his followers renounced him and 
kept on as before. 

In Massachusetts Jonathan Edwards led those who 
defended the revival, and Dr. Chauncey of Boston 
those who opposed it, in the sharp controversy already 
begun. Edwards admitted and disapproved of the evils 
connected with it, but laid emphasis on the vast gains 
from it in the salvation of souls and the spiritual uplift 
of the churches. Chauncey admitted that there were 
good results, but exaggerated and lamented the evils 
connected with it, and therefore condemned it almost 
without qualification. Edwards' most important work 
on the subject, published in 1742, was '* Thoughts on 
the Revival of Religion in New England," to which 
Chauncey replied the next year in a volume entitled 
" Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in 
New England." In May, 1743, the General Convention 
of Ministers in Massachusetts issued a ** Testimony" 
''against several errors In doctrine and disorders in 
practice, which have of late obtained in various parts 
of the land." Thirty-eight ministers were recorded 
as voting for it. Those who sympathized with the 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 259 

revival were much disturbed and irritated by this 
action, and called another convention in Cambridge 
in July, which made a discriminating report, empha- 
sizing the divine power in the revival and the good 
results from it. It was signed by one hundred and 
thirteen ministers. These two conventions and their 
deliverances indicate the excitement, with its accom- 
panying discord and bitterness, which had spread widely 
through the churches. 

Whitefield arrived at York, Me., October 19, 1744, 
with his wife, on his second visit to New England. 
His reappearance at once intensified the feelings of 
the opposing parties. The majority of the Boston 
pastors welcomed him. But several associations of 
ministers in the State refused him admission to their 
pulpits and voted emphatic declarations against him. 
The faculties of Harvard and Yale colleges issued 
*' testimonies " against him. They charged him with 
being uncharitable, censorious, slanderous, a deluder of 
the people, a man led by dreams and impulses. White- 
field replied to these attacks, mainly in a Christian 
temper, acknowledging that he had made mistakes, dis- 
avowing any intention of alienating the minds of the 
people from their ministers and asking for a charitable 
judgment. He was, however, compelled to bear, not 
only the consequences of his own mistakes, but of those 
of his followers. He remained in Boston till June 19, 
1745. He preached to great audiences, and established 
a series of six o'clock morning lectures, on Genesis, 
which were attended by such crowds that he was 
once obliged to climb in at the window. His friends 
offered to build him " the largest place of worship ever 
seen in America," but he declined to permit them to do 



26o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

it. With all the excitement, no such results followed 
his preaching as on his former visit. Just before he 
left Boston, the General Association of Connecticut, 
expecting that he would pass through that state on his 
way south, voted that " it would by no means be advis- 
able for any of our ministers to admit him into their 
pulpits or for any of our people to attend his minis- 
trations." 

Whitefield returned to New England in 1754, again 
in 1764, and finally in 1770, in which year he died, 
September 30, at Newburyport. By the time of his 
later visits the feeling against him had become soft- 
ened ; and he has long been reverenced as one of the 
most eloquent and devoted ministers of any age or 
country. 

Notwithstanding all the evils which grew out of the 
revival, it stands as the most remarkable quickening 
of the New England churches during their entire his- 
tory. The additions to the churches in consequence of 
it are variously estimated at from twenty-five thousand 
to fifty thousand, when the population of New England 
was less than five hundred thousand. Great numbers 
of church members were brought by it into a deeper 
Christian experience, and many, no doubt, who had not 
before been converted, entered Into genuine fellowship 
with Christ. Beyond question, before the revival, there 
were many unconverted ministers. The right of such 
men to the sacred office was defended by men eminent 
in the church. As many as twenty ministers in Boston 
declared that they had been converted in the revival. 
It created a much higher estimate of the ministry and 
led many young men to enter It at the call of God. It 
exalted notably the moral tone of the entire country. 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 261 

healed alienations between brethren, increased knowl- 
edge of the Bible and reverence for it, promoted the 
observance of the Sabbath, deepened in multitudes the 
sense of their sinfulness and exalted their sense of the 
holiness of God. It may almost be said to have created 
in this country those nobler sentiments of humanity, one 
fruit of which, after a century, was the overthrow of 
slavery. It emphasized the great doctrines of grace 
and the necessity of vital religion which had character- 
ized the New England churches in their early days. It 
placed the inward process of conversion foremost in 
Christian experience ; and, especially under the leader- 
ship of Edwards, it defined the New England theology 
with a distinctiveness which makes it the date of a new 
beginning in theological history. 

To Edwards himself, however, the revival was fol- 
lowed by bitter experiences. He was disappointed in 
its results, which he had at one time hoped would bring 
in the millennial reign of Christ. In 1746 a memorial 
from Scotland invited the churches in America to join 
in prayer for a revival which would accomplish this end, 
and Edwards welcomed this proposal with a sermon 
which the following year grew into a treatise entitled 
** Union In Prayer." About this time he received David 
Brainerd into his home. Brainerd In 1743 had been 
unjustly expelled from Yale College, because of an 
Injudicious remark he had made about Its faculty which 
was prompted by his sympathy with the revival. He 
had met with great success as a missionary to the 
Indians, but was now in the last stages of consumption. 
Edwards became Intensely Interested in Brainerd's 
rapturous experiences, and after his death wrote his 
biography. 



262 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Edwards had come by this time to the conviction 
that the avowal and evidence of personal experience of 
the new birth was necessary to membership in the 
church. This was the renunciation of the Halfway 
Covenant, which had in process of time been so far 
modified that baptized persons had been received into 
the Northampton church without any profession of 
Christian experience. Edwards expressed his convic- 
tions in his sermons on the ''Religious Affections" in 
1744. For the next four years no one applied to him 
for admission to the Lord's Supper. The first person 
who did apply was told that full terms of admission to 
the church would be required. This condition was 
declined. At the same time also Edwards undertook 
to bring before the church for discipline certain young 
persons connected with prominent families, whose 
names he publicly read, who were charged with reading 
impure literature and immoral practices. In this 
attempt he failed. He proposed to preach on the 
necessity of credible evidence of spiritual renewal in 
order to admission to the church, but the church refused 
to permit him to do so, and angrily persisted in com- 
pelling him to withdraw from his pastorate. An 
ecclesiastical council, convened not without elements of 
unfairness, voted by a majority of one to dissolve the 
pastoral relation, the dissolution to take effect June 22, 
1750. The church ratified the decision of the council 
by a vote of two hundred and twenty, and the town 
meeting forbade him to preach again in Northampton. 
Edwards clearly stated his position in a book entitled 
" Qualifications for Full Communion," and calmly 
accepted his fate. 

Toward the close of the year, with his wife and ten 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. 263 

children, he removed to Stockbridge, then mostly an 
Indian settlement. During his seven years' pastorate 
there he wrote his most famous work, on the " Freedom 
of the Will," and a number of other volumes. In 1757 
he accepted a call to the presidency of Princeton Col- 
lege, and there he died of smallpox a few weeks after 
his arrival. 

The religious thought and life of New England has 
been determined by the Influence of Jonathan Edwards 
more than by that of any other man, and that influence 
has extended far beyond the bounds of Congregation- 
alism. He revived and gave new meaning and power 
to the teachings of the founders of this country. He 
set in motion forces which brought to an end the Half- 
way Covenant. He made distinct the line dividing 
the church from the world. He fixed firmly In the 
churches the conviction that the new birth Is the only 
door of entrance Into the kingdom of God, and that 
the subjects of It have some reliable evidence that they 
have experienced It. Though, when smarting under 
the Injustice he endured at the hands of the council 
which dismissed him from his church at Northampton, 
he declared his preference for the Presbyterian form of 
church government, he has with good reason been 
called the father of modern Congregationalism. His 
sublime and absorbing conception of the absolute 
sovereignty of God left little room for human free- 
dom, and placed too low an estimate on human 
worth. But by some of the most eminent men on 
both sides of the Atlantic who have differed widely 
from him, as well as by those who have accepted his 
teachings, he has been regarded as the greatest 
man of the eighteenth century. Many will accept 



264 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

without qualification this tribute given to him by 
Dr. Chalmers : 

" I have long esteemed him as the greatest of theo- 
logians, combining in a degree that is unexampled the 
profoundly intellectual with the devotedly spiritual 
and sacred, and realizing in his own person a most 
rare yet most beautiful harmony between the simplicity 
of the Christian pastor on the one hand, and on the 
other all the strength and prowess of a giant in 
philosophy." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 

A CANDID study of the early history of New- 
England can lead to no other conclusion than 
this, that the most powerful motive In originating the 
war of independence was a religious motive. It was 
the same as that which first brought the Pilgrims to 
this country, that they might worship God unmolested 
in the way they believed most pleasing to Him ; that 
they might plant churches of the Congregational order 
and a civil government in harmony with the principles 
of such churches. It was the same motive as that 
which brought the Puritans out of England to plant 
a colony on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. Year 
after year from their first settlement, In increasing 
numbers, up to 1640, they fled not so much from the 
tyranny of Charles I. as from the persecutions of 
the High Commission and Archbishop Laud. They 
loathed the hierarchy of the English church, and, with 
all their loyalty to the British crown, they dreaded it 
because the hierarchy was sustained by it. The king 
was the head of the church. Parliament imposed on 
the people the laws of the church, its creed and forms 
of worship. Its bishops and other clergy were really 
appointed by the government. The Puritans In effect 
proposed to form a hierarchy of their own, but it was 
none the less hostile to the English hierarchy. 

Laud pursued the Puritans in New England with 

265 



266 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the purpose to impose on them the authority of the 
English church. Hardly had they become settled in 
their new home before, in 1634, he began his assault 
on them by securing a commission to examine their 
charter, and if necessary to revoke it. His plans were 
interrupted by the civil wars ; but his successors 
pressed those plans with no less zeal, and the Puritans 
and their successors fought against them for one hun- 
dred and fifty years with no less determination till they 
at last gained their freedom by the peace of 1783. 
John Adams, the successor of Washington as Presi- 
dent of the United States, and one of the wisest states- 
men this country ever had, says that ''the principles 
and feelings which contributed to produce the Revolu- 
tion ought to be traced back for two hundred years, 
and sought in the history of the country from the first 
plantations in America." The ruling forces in that 
early period were the Congregational ministers and 
the churches under their leadership. The ministers 
proposed the important laws which were adopted by 
the General Court. For a number of years the '' Judi- 
cials" of John Cotton, and after them the ''Body of 
Liberties" of Nathaniel Ward, were the only civil 
codes of the colony. The master spirit in forming the 
constitution of Connecticut, which, more than any 
other document, has influenced the character of our 
State and national ofovernments, was Thomas Hooker. 
The churches determinedly resisted the English hier- 
archy, and came to resist the English government 
because it sought to enforce the authority of that 
hierarchy. Mr. Adams says again : " Independence 
of English church and state was the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the first colonization, has been its general 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE WAR OF REVOLUTION. 267 

principle for two hundred years, and now, I hope, is 
past dispute." 

As Episcopacy followed the Puritans and their chil- 
dren to New England and sought to establish itself 
here, they fought it with the same intensity with which 
their ancestors had fled from it. To them Episcopacy 
meant tyranny over conscience, and made monarchy 
an instrument to compel obedience to it. The " Soci- 
ety for the Propagation of the Gospel," formed in 
England about the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury for the alleged purpose of Christianizing the 
Indians, came to be used, in the hands of English 
bishops, to proselyte Congregationalists. It attempted 
to plant Episcopal churches in towns already amply 
supplied with churches of the Congregational order on 
the assumption that such were not genuine churches of 
Christ. In 1762 that society had thirty-one missiona- 
ries in New England. John Adams, writing in 181 5 to 
Dr. Morse, declared that " the apprehension of Episco- 
pacy contributed fifty years ago, as much as any other 
cause, to arouse the attention not only of the inquiring 
mind, but of the common people, and to urge them to 
close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parlia- 
ment over the Colonies." Hildreth, in his " History of 
the United States," referring to the same period, says : 
''An unseasonable revival of the scheme for a bishop 
in the colonies had recently excited a bitter contro- 
versy . . . which could only tend to confirm the 
Congregational body in hostility to the extension of 
English influence." Jonathan Mayhew, pastor of the 
West Church, Boston, took the lead in that contro- 
versy, and after his death Dr. Chauncey continued it. 
Mayhew's sermon in 1750, on '' Unlimited Submission 



268 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers," which be- 
came famous both in America and in England, was a 
trumpet call in behalf of civil and religious liberty. It 
had a powerful and continuous influence in leading the 
New England colonists to the position where they 
were ready to declare and to fight for their independ- 
ence. " People have no security," he said, '' against 
being unmercifully priest-ridden but by keeping all 
imperious bishops, and other clergy who love to lord 
it over God's heritage, from getting their feet into 
the stirrup at all." Samuel Adams, the father of the 
Revolution, writing in 1 768 to the agent in London of 
the Massachusetts House of Representatives, advised 
him that the persistent attempts of English bishops 
to establish a Protestant Episcopate in America were 
**very alarming to a people whose fathers, from the 
hardships they suffered under such an establishment, 
were obliged to fly their native country into a wilder- 
ness. . . We hope in God such an establishment will 
never take place in America, and we desire you would 
strenuously oppose it. The revenue raised in Amer- 
ica, for aught we can tell, may be as constitutionally 
applied toward the support of prelacy as of soldiers 
and pensioners." The next year, 1769, Dr. Sewall, 
pastor of the Old South Church, died ; and the Boston 
Evening Post said of him: ** He was greatly alarmed 
with every motion to introduce the hierarchy into 
these colonies, whose predecessors had, at the peril of 
every earthly comfort, fled from the face of ecclesias- 
tical tyranny. Nor was he less jealous of the attempts 
made to deprive us of our civil rights and privileges." 
Such extracts as these, which might be multiplied, 
suffice to show how strong was the sentiment of resist- 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE-WAR OF REVOLUTION. 269 

ance among the Congregational ministers of New 
England to the ecclesiastical encroachments of Old 
England, and how their religious zeal re-enforced their 
patriotism in their appeals to the people to resist 
unjust taxation and the imposition of unwelcome offi- 
cers and laws. The presence of General Gage and 




MARK HOPKINS MEMORIAL, WILLIAMS COLLEGE, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. (/. 365). 

his redcoats In Boston did not do more to rouse 
popular resentment than did the presence of clergymen 
maintained by the Church of England. Civil and 
ecclesiastical tyranny were alike dreaded, and both 
were joined together in the minds of the people. 
While Congregational ministers thundered against the 
Stamp Act, It was equally plain, as John Adams wrote 
in his diary in 1765, that ''the Church people are 
many of them favorers of the Stamp Act." It must 
be remembered, too, that at that time nearly all New 
England people attended church, and heard preachers 



270 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

with a reverence by no means now so generally ac- 
corded to them. '' Twice every week," says Palfrey, 
'' all her people sat down to listen to able men (for the 
pulpits of New England then admitted no others) 
accomplished in the best learning of the time ; and 
while their convictions and characters were molded 
by this vigorous instrumentality, their understandings 
and their taste received a wholesome stimulus and a 
generous nurture." 

The sermons which have been preserved — and they 
are many — of those days before and during the war 
abound with the boldest declarations of civil rights, 
and of the duty of freemen to resist civil wTongs. 
Fast Day and Thanksgiving sermons rang with 
patriotic appeals. Sermons which had been preached 
long before on the principles of free government were 
brought out again and eagerly read. The two tracts 
of Rev. John Wise of Ipswich, more than half a cen- 
tury old, one of which was the ** Vindication of the 
Government of New England Churches," so clearly set 
forth the leading principles of democracy that they 
were republished by subscription of laymen in 1772 
and widely circulated. The people, too, in their 
capacity as citizens, and their rulers, regarded the 
co-operation of ministers and churches as essential to 
their success in asserting and maintaining their civil 
rights. When in 1 766 General Gage was expected in 
Boston, the citizens in town meeting voted to ask the 
ministers of the town to set apart a day of fasting and 
prayer In view of the dangers threatening the colony. 
In 1774 the Provisional Congress, with John Hancock 
at Its head. Issued an appeal to ministers, asking them 
to extend their aid to help the people to escape from 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE WAR OF REVOLUTION. 27 1 

the ''dreadful slavery" as the Congress called it, of the 
acts of Parliament. When, later in the same year. 
General Gage, having superseded Hutchinson as gov- 
ernor, was asked by the General Court to appoint a 
day of fasting and prayer and refused to do so, the 
court appealed to the associated ministers of Boston, 
who proposed to their congregations to set apart 
Thursday, July 14, 1774, to be religiously kept as a 
fast in view of threatening calamities. General Gage 
wrote of it to the Earl of Dartmouth, '* The fast 
day appointed by the faction was kept in this town on 
the 14th instant as generally and punctually as if it had 
been appointed by authority. I might say the same of 
most other places, though it was not universal." 

The churches in general followed the leadership of 
the ministers, though at the first in many of them 
there were two parties, one favoring the royalists and 
the other composed of ardent defenders of the cause of 
liberty. When the struggle with the ruling powers 
first began to take definite shape, few went so far as to 
advocate entire separation from the mother country. 
The majority demanded the repeal of unjust laws and 
the recognition of the civil rights of the colonies. 
They came slowly to willingness to relinquish the 
advantages of the protection of the strong government 
tf England against France and other foreign powers. 
They cherished inherited sentiments of loyalty to the 
home of their fathers. They felt that they were fight- 
ing the same battle which had long been and was still 
being waged by the Puritans in Old England against 
prelatical rule, and against its Insistence on the divine 
right of kings and the religious duty of passive obedi- 
ence ; and they hoped to win under the same govern- 



2/2 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ment with their brethren in England. But it came to 
be their one purpose to win at all hazards. That was 
true of them which Macaulay had said of the Puri- 
tans in England when they conquered Charles I., that 
they '* brought to civil and military affairs a coolness 
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which 
some writers have thought inconsistent with their 
religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary 
effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one 
subject made them tranquil on every other." 

Massachusetts was the foremost colony in waging 
war for national independence. She uttered the first 
defiance to British tyranny. The first battle for freedom 
was fought on her soil. She furnished nearly one-third 
of the American soldiers in that war. So far as the 
churches were a factor in bringing about the Revolu- 
tion, the preponderant influence of Congregationalists 
in Massachusetts is made evident by a simple enumera- 
tion of their relative strength. In 1770 there were 
three hundred and thirty-nine ecclesiastical organiza- 
tions in that colony, of which eleven were Episcopal, 
sixteen Baptist, eighteen Quaker and two hundred and 
ninety-four Congregational. At the close of the war 
there were one Roman Catholic, three Universalist, 
six Quaker, eleven Episcopal, sixty-eight Baptist and 
three hundred and thirty Congregational churches. 
The proportion of Congregational churches was about 
the same in the other New England States. 

The ministers and their churches not only roused 
and strengthened the spirit of liberty in the people by 
their work in the pulpit, but they bore their full share 
of the burdens of war on the field. Of course in the 
early stages of the conflict the Boston churches were 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE WAR OF REVOLUTION. 2/3 

the most prominent. On November 29, 1773, the Old 
South meeting house was crowded with people to con- 
sider what should be done concerning the tea on which 
the British government had determined that the people 
of the Colonies should pay a tax. In and about that 
house, December 16, an immense company was again 




OLD STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MASS. 

gathered to consider the same subject, and from it 
went men who that night emptied three hundred and 
forty-two chests of tea from the ships into the waters of 
the bay. The British officers had an especial spite 
against the church buildings as breeders of rebellion. 
They occupied a number of them as barracks. They 
tore down the steeple of the West Church, because 
they thought it had been used as a signal staff. They 
demolished the Old North and used the materials for 
fuel. They cut to pieces the pulpit, pews and seats of 



274 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the Old South and used the building as a stable and 
a riding school. They wantonly destroyed a large 
part of a very valuable library of Thomas Prince, a 
former pastor of the church. Soon after the war broke 
out most of the ministers left the city, their places of 
worship having been taken by the British authorities. 
Dr. Byles of Hollis Street Church, the one Tory, 
remained ; but when his people returned after the 
evacuation of the city they would not allow him to 
preach. Of the Boston pastors, Mr. Howe died at 
Hartford, August 25, 1775, and 'Mr. Hunt a few 
months later at Northampton. Dr. Pemberton of the 
Old South does not appear to have preached after the 
meeting house was desecrated. He died September 9, 
1779. 

A few instances, taken from among many by Dr. 
Joseph S. Clarke, in his '* Historical Sketch of Congre- 
gational churches in Massachussetts," show the spirit 
with which ministers everywhere inspired their people 
to fight for freedom. When the town of Sturbridge 
voted to provide four casks of powder, with other sup- 
plies, for the army, Joshua Paine, the pastor of the 
Congregational church, offered to pay for one cask, 
which cost one-fifth of his salary for the year. Samuel 
Eaton of Brunswick, Me., when the British landed on 
the coast of that province, preached a sermon which 
brought forty men in his congregation to enlist to 
meet them. His text was: ''Cursed be he that 
keepeth back his sword from blood." Thomas Allen 
of Pittsfield, chaplain at the battle of Bennington, 
being asked if he had killed any, said he hoped he had 
prevented some from being killed : " For," said he, 
"observing a flash often repeated in a bush near by, 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN THE WAR OF REVOLUTION. 275 

which seemed to be succeeded by the fall of some 
one of our men, I leveled my musket, and firing in that 
direction put out that flash." There are few of the 
older towns of New England in which some traditions 
have not survived of the effective service of Con- 
gregational ministers during the stirring scenes of the 
Revolution. 

The influence of Congregational churches was also 
not less potent in shaping the new government than in 
throwing off the yoke of the old. Congregationalism 
was in its nature a democracy, and it Avas inevitable 
that its principles of government should prevail in a 
nation planted by Congregationalists. Sir James 
Mackintosh declares that Congregationalist ministers 
first taught to John Locke *' those principles of religious 
liberty which they were the first to disclose to the 
world." Among those tracts of ministers already 
alluded to as having been reprinted to influence public 
sentiment just before the Revolutionary War, one, first 
issued by a Massachusetts pastor in 1687, bore the 
significant title, ''Democracy is Christ's government." 
Such influences as these shaped the town meeting and 
the State governments according to the principles on 
which Congregational churches were founded. The 
same influences were powerful also in bringing about 
the federation of States which has resulted in our 
united Republic. In 1766 Jonathan Mayhew wrote to 
James Otis : ''You have heard of the communion of 
churches. . . While I was thinking of this in my bed 
the great use and importance of a communion of 
colonies appeared to me in a strong light, which led 
me immediately to set down these hints to transmit to 
you." The thoughts of the ministers, who led the 



276 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

people in religion, were kindled not less by desire to 
make everyone realize his equality with his brethren 
in the church under Christ as the one head, than by 
the desire to bring all the people to gain civil freedom. 
They inspired men with love of liberty. They taught 
them that freedom was a condition to be fought for, 
even with the sacrifice of life ; to be maintained only 
by a habit of obedience to God, and to be imparted in 
its fullest meaning only to those who could receive it 
as a sacred trust. 

The idea of a ''government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people," was conceived in Congre- 
gational churches ; was by them urged and developed 
into a practical scheme, and without them would never 
have been realized. The blessings of our Republic 
have come to us through Congregationalism and 
through the men who found in its faith and polity the 
principles of self-government, together with unswerving- 
loyalty to God. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 

THE positive beginnings of Unitarianism in Massa- 
chusetts must be sought for in the reaction which 
followed the Great Awakening of 1740. Signs of its 
coming may have appeared earlier. Many ministers 
of that and the following generation regarded the 
revival of that period as throughout a work of the 
Holy Spirit. A smaller number believed it to be a 
work of God, but deplored the excesses which accom- 
panied it. Others, like Dr. Chauncey, though they 
still believed and preached the doctrines of the 
fathers, spoke of the revival only with disapproval. 
A few cared more for their intellectual freedom than 
for any creed, and were cold at heart toward emo- 
tional demonstrations of spiritual life. 

It was considerably more than half a century before 
these different classes gathered into two distinct oppos- 
ing parties. But during the whole of that period the 
effect of the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism, as the 
fathers had maintained them, was developing opposing 
tendencies. One class, devoutly holding these doc- 
trines but realizing the difficulties which the human 
reason encountered in accepting them, became increas- 
ingly Interested in philosophical and metaphysical 
attempts to justify the ways of God to men. The other 
class was increasingly disposed to deny the authority 

277 



278 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of creeds and confessions and to praise the spirit of 
free inquiry. While the latter class would naturally 
be regarded with suspicion, in the first class were 
the accepted leaders in the churches. Some of them 
exerted wide influence through the pupils who came, 
as was the custom in those days, to study with them in 
preparation for the ministry. They developed distin- 
guishing features of theological teaching, which their 
pupils reproduced and defended with loyalty to their 
instructors. Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, Conn., and 
Samuel Hopkins of Newport, R. I., had studied the- 
ology with Jonathan Edwards. Each founded a 
modified system of theology and taught it to his 
pupils. The Edwardean system evolved into the 
Hopkinsian, and this in later years passed through 
further changes in the hands of Nathaniel Emmons 
of Franklin, Mass., and in the earlier part of the 
present century was again modified by Nathaniel 
W. Taylor of New Haven, by Lyman Beecher and 
others, till it came to be known as '' The New Divinity." 
Some of its expounders, men of great and trained 
powers of reasoning, became sometimes more inter- 
ested in discussing the philosophy of the change by 
which a soul is born into the kino-dom of God than 
in pressing home with fervid appeal the truth which 
the Holy Spirit uses to bring about that change. 
For example, Hopkins demonstrated, as he believed, 
that sinners had natural power but not moral power 
to believe in Christ ; that in the process of the new 
birth repentance precedes faith ; that God exerted 
His power in such a manner that He purposed it to 
be followed by the existence of sin, but that He 
overrules sin to promote good ; and that it is a test 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 279 

of the renewed man that he must be willing to lose 
his own soul for the glory of God. Discussions on 
themes like these gathered prejudices against the 
gospel as it was preached which waited a favorable 
time for expression. 

It must not be supposed that these noted teachers 
were merely metaphysical theologians. They were 
also reformers, the vanguard of that army which has 
wrought the greatest moral advances of this age. 
Hopkins, settled at Newport in 1770, when a number 
of his parishioners owned slaves, boldly denounced 
slavery as a crime. He did this with such effect 
that his people were induced to free their slaves. 
Whittier has said of the day when Hopkins preached 
against slavery : " It may well be doubted whether 
on that Sabbath day the angels of God in their 
wide survey looked upon a nobler spectacle than 
that of the minister of Newport rising up before his 
slaveholding congregation and demanding in the 
name of the Highest the deliverance of the captive 
and the opening of prison doors to them that were 
bound." Emmons also was an abolitionist and a 
stanch defender of various reforms, as well as an 
illustrious expounder and defender of the Congrega- 
tional polity. Lyman Beecher's famous six sermons 
against intemperance made him the pioneer in the 
great work for temperance in this country. The 
leadership which these men and their compeers 
maintained in theology was greatly strengthened by 
their interest in practical reforms. 

But on the other hand there was an increasing num- 
ber of ministers whose impatience with metaphysical 
subtleties strengthened their indifference to essential 



28o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

doctrines of the gospel. Some of these were able 
men, whose earnestness in the time of civil conflict 
with England found more frequent expression in impas- 
sioned love of liberty than in the language of adoration 
to God. Jonathan Mayhew, of the West Church, 
Boston, who died in 1766, was one of the earliest of 
this type of ministers. He was a bold, liberal thinker, 
as impatient of theological as he was of monarchical 
restraints. He was not adverse to startling people by 
extreme statements. He made some allusions to the 
deity of Christ which even he was ready to acknowl- 
edge as too rash. Bellamy said of him, " He boldly 
ridicules the doctrine of the Trinity and denies the 
doctrine of justification by faith alone." Yet he would 
probably never have admitted the truth of such a 
charge. So far as he did deny these doctrines, he 
stood almost alone among New England ministers pre- 
vious to the Revolutionary War. Dr. Chauncey of the 
First Church, Mayhew's contemporary and his survivor 
till 1 78 1, bold, unimaginative, with little reverence for 
the past, carried his bitter opposition to the great 
revival in later years to like opposition to some of the 
doctrines prominently preached in that revival. Espe- 
cially he preached and wrote against the doctrine of 
eternal retribution, and defended the doctrine of the 
final restoration of all men. Thacher, pastor of the 
Brattle Street Church from 1 785-1 802, declared : ** For 
myself I can say that I l)elieve the true and proper 
divinity of Jesus Christ ; the awful depravity of human 
nature ; the necessity of regeneration and of the agency 
of the Divine Spirit in effecting the change ; the in- 
sufificiency of our own works to justify us in the sight 
of God ; the necessity of holiness in heart and life in 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 28 1 

order to fit us for heaven ; and the utter futility of the 
hope that in the future state we shall have the oppor- 
tunity of rectifying the mistakes as to our own religious 
character which we make in the present. . . But great 
and good men, men much greater and better than I am, 
have materially differed from me in their ideas on 
these subjects." Such divergent lines of thinking as 
were represented by Hopkins and Emmons on one 
side and Chauncey and Thacher on the other could not 
but have their legitimate effect on thinking people in 
the pews. Men turned to one kind of preachers to find 
themselves met by metaphysical distinctions which they 
could not understand, and to another kind to find the 
mysterious and the supernatural set aside as unedi- 
fying, with a plea for simplicity which was often only 
another name for spiritual barrenness. One cannot 
read the record of these years without earnestly wish- 
ing that a wise, consecrated, zealous evangelist might 
have appeared, with trumpet voice calling the churches 
to their knees and the unconverted to repentance. 

Yet though two opposing parties were forming in the 
Massachusetts churches for more than fifty years, the 
division did not distinctly appear till the beginning of 
the present century. The first church which avowed 
itself to be Unitarian was not Congregational but 
Episcopal. For two years after the outbreak of the 
Revolution, King's Chapel was without a rector. Then 
for five years it was lent to the Old South Church, 
whose meeting house had been made unfit for use by 
British troops. In 1782 the remnant of the organiza- 
tion called James Freeman to be their rector, a brilliant 
young student from Harvard. The Revolution had 
made it necessary that the prayer book should be 



282 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

changed in Its references to political rulers. Freeman 
took advantage of that fact to omit also the passages 
in which the Trinity was recognized. He met with 
opposition, but by a vote of twenty to seven the new 
ritual was adopted. He sought In vain for ordination 
by Episcopal bishops ; and at last in 1787 his wardens 
laid hands on him in a service of nominal ordination, 
though seventeen of the members of the parish pro- 
tested. This was the beginning of organized Uni- 
tarianlsm in Boston. 

Unitarianism in Europe was first preached in Poland 
as Socinianism about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Its founder, Socinus, denied the deity of Christ, 
the moral fall of man, the necessity of an atonement 
for sin, the resurrection of the body and eternal pun- 
ishment. From the beginning it was mainly a series 
of denials of these doctrines. John Biddle was the 
father of Unitarianism in England. He was banished 
for his teachings to the Scilly Islands, and finally died 
In prison In 1662. Thomas Emlyn, born the following 
year, championed Riddle's views, for which he also 
suffered punishment Inflicted by the government. He 
published In England near the close of the seventeenth 
century a '' Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account 
of Jesus Christ," in which he denied His deity. He 
died in 1743. In 1756 his book was republished in 
Boston and attracted considerable attention. Joseph 
Priestley, born in 1733, became in 1755 a dissenting 
minister In England, but three years later withdrew 
from his congregation because he had renounced belief 
in the atonement. He became not only the foremost 
defender of Unitarianism in Europe, but one of the 
most honored among scientific men. He was the dis- 



Ns 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 283 

coverer of oxygen and other gases, and his reputation 
as a scientist gave added weight to his publications in 
defense of his reHgious views. Thomas Belsham, a 
dissenting minister, in 1789 avowed himself a Unita- 
rian, and next to Priestley came to be regarded as the 
leader of Unitarianism in England. Unitarians there 
were naturally interested in the progress of their views 
in America, and Belsham maintained a regular corre- 
spondence with Freeman of Boston. Priestley came 
to America in 1794 and remained in Pennsylvania till 
his death in 1804. He was disappointed in the results 
of his visit, and it was not thought wise by those who 
favored his views to invite him to Boston ; but his 
presence in this country increased the interest here felt 
in Unitarianism. 

As the century drew to its close, a revival of great 
power spread through the Middle States and further 
west ; and its influence was felt, though with less force, 
in England. Methodism., which first made its appear- 
ance in Massachusetts in 1790, kindled in many com- 
munities new religious fervor, and offered an oppor- 
tunity for religious expression to those evangelical 
Christians who did not accept the doctrines of Calvin- 
ism. In Yale College the powerful and eloquent 
preaching of President Timothy Dwight turned back 
the tide of French infidelity which was sweeping over 
that institution and quickened the religious interest 
among New England churches. The Congregational 
Missionary Society of Connecticut was formed in 1798, 
and the Massachusetts Missionary Society the follow- 
ing year, with Dr. Emmons as its first president. 
These societies aimed to give the gospel to " the 
remote parts of our country, where Christ is seldom 



284 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

preached," and looked beyond ''through more distant 
regions of the earth, as circumstances shall invite and 
the ability of the society shall admit." Thus the 
beginning of the present century witnessed the com- 
mencement of that organized missionary effort which 
has become the foremost interest of the churches of 
our time. 

All these movements tended to emphasize the dis- 
tinction between those who believed and preached the 
orthodox doctrines and those who were indifferent to 
or repudiated them. The churches which came to be 
known as *' evanofelical," in distinction from those 
which called themselves '' liberal," sympathized with 
and experienced revivals, and almost exclusively sup- 
ported the missionary societies. The Boston churches 
were passing into the leadership of ''liberal" ministers. 
In 1799 William Emerson succeeded Clarke in the 
pastorate of the First Church. In 1803 William Ellery 
Channing became pastor of the Federal Street Church. 
He began. his ministry, he afterward said, "by abstain- 
ing most scrupulously from every expression which 
could be construed into an acknowledgment of the 
Trinity." In 1805 Buckminster succeeded Thacher 
in the Brattle Street Church. He was known to have 
adopted Freeman's views of the Trinity. The evan- 
gelical ministers were alive to the danger of division 
and endeavored to strengthen their position. In 1802 
they took steps to form a General Association of the 
ministers of the State. The same year the Massachu- 
setts Missionary Magazine was begun, to promote 
pure religion and awaken a missionary spirit. The 
next year the General Association was formed, though 
representatives of only five of the twenty-four district 



^^ 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 285 

associations participated in the organization. The 
new body declared "the doctrines of the Westminster 
Shorter Catechism to be considered as the basis of the 
union of our churches." In 1810 the Association 
further declared that the doctrines of that catechism 
are "understood by us to be distinctly those which 
from the beginning have been generally embraced by 
the churches of New England as the doctrines of the 
gospel." 

The formation of the General Association was 
opposed by many of the district associations. Some 
of them regarded the step as perilous to the liberty of 
the churches. Dr. Emmons opposed it because " As- 
sociatlonism leads to Consociationism ; Consociation- 
ism leads to Presbyterianism ; Presbyterlanism leads 
to Episcopacy ; Episcopacy leads to Roman Catholi- 
cism, and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact." But 
the strongest opposition came from the "liberal" 
party. The Boston association, in declaring its disap- 
proval of the general association idea in 1805, said 
that the efforts to agree on a doctrinal basis would 
result in the "erection of barriers between those who 
at present are not formally separated," and that "the 
bonds of union would be strengthened between those 
only who are already sufficiently cemented. " 

About this time the excitement in the churches was 
greatly intensified by a successful attempt to bring 
the control of Harvard College Into the hands of the 
liberal party. Dr. Archibald Alexander, then Presi- 
dent of Hampden-SIdney College, Virginia, writing in 
later years of a visit to Harvard in 1801, says: "Even 
at the time of my visit all the young men of talent in 
Harvard were Unitarians." Referring to a visit to 



286 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Dr. Buckminster at Portsmouth, N. H., he says that 
the younger Buckminster, ''the pride of Harvard," 
was '* full of anecdotes such as were current at Cam- 
bridge, and which were mostly intended to ridicule 
evangelical opinions." Mr. Hollis, a merchant of 
London, had given a partial endowment to support a 
professor of divinity *' of sound orthodox principles." 
A vacancy having occurred in this professorship by the 
death of Dr. Tappan in 1804, strenuous efforts were 
made, and as strenuously resisted, to fill his place with 
a professor of Unitarian belief. After a contest of a 
year, two members of the corporation having died, and 
their places having been filled by ''liberal" men, 
Henry Ware of Hingham was appointed. He was an 
anti-Calvinist, though he had not then declared himself 
a Unitarian. The right to examine him with respect 
to his theological beliefs was denied. Intense and 
bitter opposition to Dr. Ware's appointment at once 
manifested itself both within and without the college. 
Dr. Samuel Spring of Newburyport, a teacher of 
theological students of the Hopkinsian type, in two 
published sermons denounced the appointment as the 
violation of a sacred trust. Dr. Morse of Charlestown, 
a member of the Board of Overseers, sharply opposed 
the appointment on similar grounds. The election of 
Dr. Webber as president the following year confirmed 
the conviction that Harvard was lost to the evan- 
gelical churches. Dr. Eliphalet Pearson, professor of 
Hebrew and other Oriental languages, who had also 
been acting as president, now resigned his position 
and withdrew from the corporation, of which he was 
a member. Dr. Morse also withdrew. Dr. Pearson 
went to Andover, where he had formerly been the first 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 287 

principal, of Phillips Academy. The two brothers 
Phillips, who were the founders of this institution • 
in 1778, had made provision by a fund for the support ^ 
of students who might wish to pursue theological 
studies in connection with the academy, and already 
some dozen or more had availed themselves of this 
aid. Dr. Pearson at once began to take steps to 
found a theological institution in connection with the 
academy. An association for this purpose was formed 
July 10, 1806, by Drs. Pearson and Morse, Mr. Samuel 
Abbott, and four other gentlemen. Mr. Abbott had 
bequeathed his estate to Harvard, to be used for the 
education of theological students. But after the 
election of Dr. Ware he revoked his will, and 
devised the property to the trustees of Phillips 
Academy for the same purpose. In June, 1807, the 
General Court authorized these trustees to hold funds 
for the establishment of a theological institution on 
the academy foundation. 

Meanwhile another movement to found a theological 
seminary had begun at Newburyport. In this Dr. 
Spring was interested, and in his congregation, though 
not a member of the church, was a prosperous young 
merchant, William Bartlett. Dr. Spring had already 
a number of students under his instruction. Mr. 
Bartlett and his friend, Moses Brown, were ready to 
give a generous sum of money to found a seminary. 
When those who had begun these two movements 
became acquainted with each other's purposes, earnest 
efforts were made to unite them, and this union, 
though not without many difficulties, was at last 
happily accomplished in 1808. It brought together 
the old Calvinists and the Hopkinsians, who had 



288 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

before made two parties in the denomination, and 
remanded their difficulties to the background in view 
of the new errors which both opposed. 

Madam Phoebe PhilHps and her son, Hon. John 
Phillips of Andover, erected two buildings, one of 
which is known as Phillips Hall. Mr. Abbott gave 
twenty thousand dollars to found a professorship and 
left to the institution by will one hundred thousand 
dollars additional. Messrs. Bartlett, Brown and John 
Norris of Salem, gave ten thousand dollars each, and 
from each of these persons the seminary later received 
from twenty-five thousand to seventy-five thousand 
dollars. These gifts were accompanied by deep and 
consecrated purpose of the donors to preserve vital 
religion in the churches of New England and to spread 
the gospel throughout the world. Mr. Norris was 
greatly interested in the subject of foreign missions, 
and had some time before withdrawn ten thousand 
silver dollars from the bank, put them up in firkins, 
and consecrated them to this work. Madam Phillips 
wrote in a letter concerning the building she proposed 
to erect, '* I hope a prayer will be offered for every 
hod of brick and every bucket of mortar used in its 
erection." 

The seminary was duly organized in the summer 
of 1808. Dr. Pearson, President of the Board of 
Trustees, was chosen Professor of Natural Theology, 
and Rev. Leonard Woods, Professor of Christian 
Theology. Mr. Woods had been influential in bringing 
about the union of the two movements in the support 
of one institution. A strictly orthodox creed was pre- 
pared, with the provision that every professor should 
sign it and repeat in the same way the avowal of his 



290 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

belief once in every five years. A Board of Visitors 
was provided for, whose powers were authorized by 
a special act of the Legislature. 

Andover Seminary began at once to be a source of 
strength to the orthodox churches, a center around 
which the defenders of the faith of the fathers gath- 
ered with renewed courage. Its trustees called able 
men to serve as instructors, who as writers, teachers 
and preachers exerted wide and growing influence in 
support of Calvinistic doctrines. The churches rallied 
to their support by prayers and gifts and by per- 
suading some of their choicest young men to enter the 
seminary in preparation for the ministry. During its 
first year the institution enrolled thirty-six students. 
In 1809 Dr. Edward Dorr Grififin was inaugurated 
Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, and the following, year 
Rev. Moses Stuart was made Professor of Sacred 
Literature. He became one of the ablest of the Scrip- 
ture exegetists of the first half of this century, and a 
tower of strength to the seminary. 

In other ways also the conflict was waxing sharper 
between the two bodies whose lines of division were 
still not fully defined. In 1803 ^^^ ^^^^ treatise 
against Trinitarian doctrines written by an American 
was published in Boston. It was a work on the atone- 
ment by Hosea Ballou, pastor of the first Universal- 
ist Church organized in this country. In 1804 the 
Monthly Anthology was begun, in charge of Emer- 
son of the First Church, under the auspices of the 
Anthology Club, of fourteen members. It was dedi- 
cated to literature, but was used effectually to com- 
mend ''liberal" religion. In 1805 the Panoplist 
arose, with Drs. Spring and Morse and other orthodox 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 29I 

ministers as its editors. It was an able defender of 
the Calvinistic doctrines. In 1808 it was united with 
the Missionary Magazine. 

The annual Convention Sermon at Boston was an 
outlet for the expression of conflicting beliefs, as repre- 
sentatives of the opposing- parties w^ere successively 
elected preachers. In 1805, for example, Lyman of 
Hatfield affirmed the doctrine of total depravity, and 
declared that Christ *' is essentially God and equal with 
the F'ather." The next year Reed of Bridgewater 
defended liberality in belief and denounced '' censo- 
rious persons," with evident reference to the sermon of 
Lyman. Thus the forces of the storm were gathering, 
with no final outbreak as yet. The liberal ministers 
did not know their streno^th. The orthodox ministers 
were divided amono- themselves. The strict Calvinists 
resisted earnestly the metaphysical differences affirmed 
by the Hopkinsians. The liberal party, equally with 
the orthodox, shrank from open separation, yet saw 
and felt the signs of its approach. The conflict which 
had begun between ministers, had then extended to 
periodicals and had made Harvard College on one 
side and Andover Seminary on the other centers of 
opposition, w^as now spreading through churches and 
parishes. 

All the churches united In the ordination of Joshua 
Huntington as associate pastor with Dr. Eckley of the 
Old South in 1808. But the sermon by Dr. Morse 
was a vigorous and aggressive plea for doctrinal 
preaching, while Mr. Channing, in giving the right 
hand of fellowship, expressed in finished phrases his 
wish for the continuance of charity and unity. Janu- 
ary I, 1808, the Second Church of Dorchester was 



292 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

formally recognized by council, and December 7 John 
Codman was ordained pastor, Mr. Channing preaching 
the sermon. Mr. Codman, in his letter of acceptance, 
distinctly avowed his " firm, unshaken faith in those 
doctrines that are sometimes called the doctrines of 
the Reformation, the doctrines of the Cross, the 
peculiar doctrines of the gospel." He also asked that 
Watts' Psalms and Hymns be restored to the use of 
the church in place of a collection by Belknap which 
omitted the doxologies to the Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost. He thus squarely placed himself with the 
orthodox party in the denomination. On the other 
hand there was introduced into the First Church, Bos- 
ton, a collection of hymns prepared by Emerson and 
Buckminster, which excluded allusions to the deity of 
Christ, the sacrificial atonement, the personality of the 
Holy Spirit and future retribution. 

In February, 1809, Park Street Church was organized, 
its members avowing their belief in the Westminster 
Shorter Catechism, the Confession of 1680, and the 
Calvinistic doctrines as stated in a creed of their own. 
That church quickly became another strong rallying 
point for believers in the doctrine of the fathers. Dr. 
Griffin of Andover Seminary preached much of the 
time at Park Street, till he was installed pastor in 181 r, 
when he withdrew from his professorship. His volume 
of Sabbath Evening lectures published in that year, on 
''Total Depravity," "Regeneration Supernatural," 
*' Election," and kindred themes, suggests the doc- 
trines which were then most vigorously attacked and 
defended, and the character of the preaching which 
caused the place where the meeting house stands 
to be called " Brimstone Corner." 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 



293 



In 1 8 10 Dr. Porter of Roxbury preached the con- 
vention sermon on ''Christian Simplicity." He named 
various doctrines, among which were Original Sin, 
Trinity in Unity, the Deity of Jesus Christ, the Eter- 
nity of Punishment, and said, " I cannot place my 
finger on any one in the list of doctrines just men- 
tioned, the belief or rejection 
of which I consider essential 
to Christian character." It is 
needless to say that the pulpit 
of Park Street thundered ao^ainst 
such statements as this. 

In 1810 Dr. Kirkland of New 
North Church, of well-known 
Unitarian sen- 
timents, was 
elected Presi- 
dent of Har- 
vard and it was 
generally con- 
ceded that no 
hope remained 
of the recovery 
of that college 
to the orthodox 
faith. In that 
year the Ameri- 
can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was 
organized by the action of the General Association 
of Massachusetts, to send missionaries of the gospel 
to heathen lands, and soon became a new center of 
interest which drew together believers in the ancient 
faith. There was considerable difficulty in procuring 




PARK STREET MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON. ERECTED 
181O. 



294 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

for it a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature, 
owing to opposition from those who did not sympathize 
with the religious belief of its promoters. 

Meanwhile Unitarianism made little progress in 
Connecticut. In 1805 John Sherman, minister at 
Mansfield, had published his disbelief in the Trinity 
and had been deprived of membership in his minis- 
terial association, though he was regularly dismissed 
by council from the church. In 181 1 Abiel Abbott of 
Coventry, having made a similar avowal, and having 
been dismissed by the Tolland County Consociation, 
secured an important council from eastern Massa- 
chusetts to sustain him : whereupon the General As- 
sociation of Connecticut made a " public and solemn 
declaration that there be neither ministerial nor Chris- 
tian fellowship " between the members of that council 
and the consociated churches and pastors. The strong 
orthodox preaching of President Dwight of Yale and 
other leading ministers prevented Unitarianism from 
gaining a foothold in Connecticut. So far as the 
churches were concerned, the extent of the secession 
was confined to a single one. In 1809 Buckminster 
wrote to Belsham, '' The State of Connecticut, the 
greater part of Massachusetts and New Hampshire are 
filled with what we call Hopkinsian clergymen, or the 
followers of Jonathan Edwards and others, who pushed 
the first tenets of Calvinism only to their natural con- 
sequence." '' It is the prevailing idea all over the 
United States that the clergy of Boston are little 
better than Deists." 

In Massachusetts, however, the contest between 
churches and the parishes with which these churches 
were connected was already going on in 18 10. As 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 295 

early as 1792 the entire church in Taunton, except 
four members, withdrew from the parish because con- 
trolling men in the society were opposed to some of 
the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel contained in 
the Westminster Confession of Faith. In 1800 fifty- 
two members of the old First Church in Plymouth 
seceded and formed the Third Church, now called 
the Church of the Pilgrimage. In 1810 the church in 
New Bedford withdrew in a body, leaving scarcely any 
members behind to be connected with the parish. 

About forty of the parishioners of Mr. Codman of 
Dorchester expressed disappointment because he had 
not exchanged with Boston ministers. He refused to 
make pledges, and finally maintained his position, 
though not without a severe struggle, which included 
the calling of two councils. The parish finally put 
another minister in the pulpit and placed a guard on 
the pulpit stairs to keep out Mr. Codman. But he 
preached from the platform and then retired with his 
congregation, leaving only a handful to hear the parish 
preacher. Of the one hundred and fifty members of 
the church, all except seven or eight stood by their 
pastor. The matter was settled by the withdrawal of 
the Unitarians, whose pews were purchased at a fair 
price. In 181 1 the parish in Sandwich, by a vote of 
eighty-three to eighty, declared their pastor, Jonathan 
Burr, dismissed because he preached Calvinistic doc- 
trines. More than five-sixths of the church adhered to 
their minister, but they were forced to abandon the 
meeting-house and to build a new one while the title 
to the name of the church and its property remained 
for the time in contest. 

Though the strained relations throughout eastern 



296 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Massachusetts were such as to maintain constant 
anxiety, it was probably as yet believed by few that 
actual division would occur in many churches. Green- 
wood, the successor of Thacher in the New South 
Church, years later described it as a time *' when in 
our religious world there was nothing but distrust on 
one side and fear and evasion on the other ; when the 
self-conceited theologian looked awry on the suspicious 
heretic, and the object of his suspicion answered him 
with circumlocution and evasion." Men who after- 
ward avowed themselves Unitarians still resented the 
charge that they had abandoned orthodox doctrines. 
When a Socinian publication in London announced 
that Unitarian sentiments were prevalent in Massa- 
chusetts, Francis Parkman, a young minister from 
Boston, then in London, denied the statement, declar- 
ing that " there was scarcely a parishioner in Boston 
who would not be shocked at having his minister 
preach the peculiarities of Unitarianism." ''We are 
not," he said, "and permit me to add, as long as we 
study the Scriptures we shall not become converts to 
your new doctrine." Parkman became the successor 
of Eliot in New North Church in 18 13, and after the 
division occurred was prominent among the Unita- 
rian ministers. As opportunity offered, attacks of one 
side against the other became more and more pro- 
nounced, and not less irritating because not distinctly 
avowed. In 181 3, for example, President Kirkland of 
Harvard preached the convention sermon, of which 
his friends said that "without directly impugning any 
of the tenets of the opposite theology, he examined 
them completely and brushed them away like cob- 
webs." 



4 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 297 

Thus the two parties, still connected together under 
one name, but opposing each other in doctrines, with 
different rallying centers, leaders and periodicals, sim- 
ply awaited some signal for a formal separation and 
for gathering into opposing camps. The Unitarian 
party held power and prestige in Boston and its 
vicinity. It had obtained full control of the ancient 
college. It claimed nearly all the ministers in Boston 
churches, the strongest in the land in numbers and 
wealth. But the orthodox forces were better organ- 
ized. They had a theological seminary already well 
endowed. They controlled the State Association. 
Their leaders were being diverted by the peril of 
division from their own differences with one another 
in theological beliefs, and they had a deeper stimulus 
to effort in the missionary organizations already begun 
with the aim to convert the world to Christ. An occa- 
sion for a declaration of separation between the two 
parties was soon to arise. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE {continued^. 

IN the beginning of the year 1815 there appeared in 
Boston a Httle pamphlet entitled ''A Brief History 
of the Progress and Present State of Unitarian 
Churches in America." It at once created intense 
excitement. It was merely some extracts from a 
memoir of Theophilus Lindsey, an English Unitarian 
minister, written by Belsham and published in England 
in 181 2. It contained letters written from time to time 
by Freeman to Belsham, describing the growth of 
Unitarianism in America. The memoir had been for 
two or more years In the library of Harvard College 
when Dr. Morse, after repeated applications, secured 
the privilege of reading it. He caused extracts con- 
taining the letters to be published. A few specimens 
will show the significance of these letters. In 1789 
Freeman wrote that there were in Massachusetts 
'' many churches in which the worship was strictly 
Unitarian." In 1794 he wrote again, that he was 
"acquainted with a number of ministers, particularly in 
the southern part of Massachusetts, who avowed and 
publicly preached Unitarian doctrine," while others 
" more cautious, contented themselves with leading 
their hearers by a course of rational and prudent ser- 
mons, gradually and sensibly to embrace it." Similar 
letters appeared in this pamphlet from Mr. Wells, a 
Boston publisher. 

298 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 299 

This publication at once precipitated the crisis which 
had long been approaching. The orthodox forces 
declared that these letters were evidences that the 
** liberals" had for years been concealing their beliefs 
and intentions with deliberate design to carry the 
churches over to Unitarianism. The Panoplist pub- 
lished a review of the pamphlet, written by Jeremiah 
Evarts, presenting the known sentiments of Unitarians 
in England, and ascribing those views to Unitarians 
in America who had not avowed their belief. The 
" liberals " indignantly denied the charge of unworthy 
concealment. Channing, in a published letter to 
Thacher, declared that his worship and sentiments had 
been Unitarian, and that while the great majority of 
the liberal clergy differed from English Unitarians and 
believed that Christ was more than man, it w^as *' no 
crime to believe with Mr. Belsham." Samuel Worces- 
ter of Salem replied in the Panoplist to Channing, 
that " it seemed to have been received as an established 
uncontested fact that ministers of the liberal class w^ere 
not accustomed to be unreserved and explicit in the 
public avowal and declaration of their sentiments." 
Publications on both sides multiplied, the controversy 
lost dignity : Unitarians disavowed and attacked ortho- 
dox doctrines in their pulpits, Trinitarians drew closer 
together and complete separation was before long 
established. Trinitarians had already defined their 
position. Park Street Church had expressed it in its 
original confession as a /'decided attachment to that 
system of the Christian religion which is distinguish- 
ingly denominated Evangelical ; more particularly to 
those doctines which, in proper sense, are styled doc- 
trines of grace." Unitarians refused to avow these 



300 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

''doctrines of grace," but pleaded for charity. They 
charged Trinitarians with illiberality and exclusiveness, 
and were in turn charged with insincerity and disin- 
genuousness. The Unitarians were trying to retain 
the name and historic prestige of Congregationalism, 
while they repudiated its chief doctrines. The conten 
tion had increased through the use of the press, espe- 
cially of the periodicals which represented one or the 
other party. In 1816 the Boston Recorder was begun 
as representing the Evangelical churches. Two years 
before the American Tract Society had been formed 
in Boston. The Panopolist and Missio7iary Maga- 
zine published earnest and able articles in defence of 
Trinitarian belief. The General Repository, begun in 
Cambridge in 181 2, represented the Unitarians. 

Ministers also drew apart from one another and 
ranged themselves according to their beliefs. Earnest 
efforts were made to increase the number of Evangeli- 
cal ministers, not only by strengthening Andover 
Seminary but by providing aid for young men pre- 
paring for the ministry. In 18 15 the American Educa- 
tion Society was organized for this purpose. An 
attempt was also made to unite the Massachusetts 
churches in consociation according to the plan estab- 
lished in Connecticut, but this failed. The attempt 
was based on a manuscript found among the papers of 
Cotton Mather, and presented to the General Associa- 
tion in 1 8 14. It proved to be the original draft of the 
Proposals of 1705, which had been printed as late as 
1772, but had been forgotten. Of course the lines of 
division between Congregational ministers were not 
at once In all cases distinctly drawn. But of the two 
hundred and seventy-five in Massachusetts at that time 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 301 

about seventy-five Immediately came to be regarded as 
Unitarian. The churches mostly followed the lead of 
their ministers. The large majority rallied to the 
defense of the old faith. But In Boston all except the 
Old South and Park Street were Unitarian, and their 
influence, with that of Harvard, was intellectually and 
socially very great. Many of the churches in eastern 
Massachusetts were In sympathy with them. 

The sharpest controversy, however, came where tlie 
dividing line was drawn within the local parishes. 
Already this had been done in several instances. The 
cases of Plymouth, New Bedford and Sandwich have 
already been mentioned. The crucial question soon 
arose as to wliat legally constituted the church, and 
whether church or parish, in case of a division, had a 
title to the name and property. Each parish was then 
a religious society for maintaining public worship ; and 
the cost of so doing. Including the support of the 
minister, was usually raised by a tax on the property 
of the parish. By a law passed in i 754 the deacons of 
the church were made trustees of property designed 
for religious and charitable uses. 

The first case decided by the courts was that of 
the First Church, Dedham, which began in i8t8. A 
vacancy having occurred in the pastorate, the parish, 
contrary to all precedent, took the Initiative in calling 
Mr. Alvan Lamson to be the pastor of the church. The 
church thereupon decided by a vote of eighteen to 
fourteen of the male members that It was not ready to 
call a pastor. An invitation to several churches was 
then sent out by '' the First Parish of Dedham " to 
assemble In council and Install Mr. Lamson. This the 
representatives of the Invited churches proceeded to 



302 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

do. A few weeks later another council called by the 
"First Church of Dedham " declared irregular the pro- 
ceedings of the council called by the parish. The church 
therefore withdrew from the parish and claimed the title 
to its name and its own special property. An appeal 
to the civil courts resulted after two years in a decision 
by Chief Justice Parker, in 1820, that "the only circum- 
stance which gives a church any legal character is its 
connection with some regularly constituted society." 
By this decision all civil power connected with the 
church belonged to the parish. The court declared 
that "as to all civil purposes, the secession of a whole 
church from the parish would be the extinction of the 
church." In such a case the parish could not only 
hold its own property, the right to which was con- 
ceded, but could organize a church which would inherit 
the title and property of the seceding church. 

This decision established a precedent by which 
many other similar cases were settled during the next 
twenty years. In consequence of it a number of 
churches were deprived of their names, records, church 
furniture and funds ; and in many cases those who 
took possession of them would have been excluded 
from the church by the persons who had given this 
property. A careful review, published in the Congre- 
gational Quarterly for July, 1863, of the individual 
instances in which separations occurred between 
churches and parishes, shows that forty-six churches 
had been "driven from their houses of worship by 
town or parish votes, or by measures equivalent to 
such votes," while thirty-five others had been con- 
strained by conscience to secede as individuals and 
form distinct churches. Thirty-nine churches became 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 303 

Unitarian by the acquiescence of their members without 
division. Of the three hundred and sixty-one Congre- 
gational churches in Massachusetts in 1810, the meeting- 
houses and other property of one hundred and twenty- 
six churches were eventually lost to the denomination. 

Great intensity was thus added to the controversy 
between the two parties. The orthodox denied the 
justice of the decision, either in law or equity; and 
some Unitarians have since admitted that the issue 
raised was perplexing, and that they were not in all 
cases satisfied with the legal decisions. The distinction 
between two organizations in the same town, marked 
by the titles ''parish church" and ''exiled church," 
with the sense of triumph on one side and of Injustice 
on the other, brought discord into village life and left 
evil effects which have scarcely yet disappeared. 

Though Unitarian churches came to be known as 
such in 1 81 5, organized Unitarlanism dates from 1825, 
when the American Unitarian Association was formed 
in order to consecrate their work and spread their 
belief by means of missionaries and publications. It 
is significant that when Unitarians organized their 
National Conference in 1865 they declined to use the 
term " Congregational." 

To comprehend the nature and issues of this contro- 
versy it is necessary to consider both the theological 
and social factors involved. As to the first. Dr. George 
E. Ellis, one of the most conservative Unitarians of 
the older school, in his " Half Century of the Unita- 
rian Controversy," thus answers on its negative side 
the question, "What is Unitarlanism?" 

" Unitarlanism stands in direct and positive oppo- 
sition to Orthodoxy on three great doctrines which 



304 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Orthodoxy teaches with emphasis as vital to its system, 
namely : that the nature of human beings has been 
vitiated, corrupted and disabled in consequence of the 
sin of Adam, for which God has in judgment doomed 
our race to suffering and woe ; that Jesus Christ is 
God, and therefore an object of religious homage and 
prayer ; and that the death of Christ is made effectual 
to human salvation by reconciling God to man and 
satisfying the claims of an insulted and outraged law. 
Unitarianism denies that these are doctrines of the 
gospel, and offers very different doctrines, sustained by 
Scripture, in their place. The rejection of these three 
doctrines, and the belief of those which Unitarianism 
substitutes for them, constitutes Unitarianism." 

We have allowed this statement of Dr. Ellis in defin- 
ing orthodox doctrines to pass, although we should 
use somewhat different language. But what are these 
substituted doctrines? Dr. Ellis says that ''On all 
other matters of Christian doctrine a Unitarian may be 
in entire accordance with the general views of the 
orthodox and yet be not one whit less a Unitarian." 
In fact, however, no unity is claimed by Unitarians in 
positive belief. They agree in denying the moral ruin 
of the human race in consequence of the sin of Adam, 
the deity of Jesus Christ, and the vicarious atonement 
But as to the atonement. Dr. Ellis says "It would be 
difficult to make Unitarians as a body responsible for 
any positive dogma on this subject." Indeed, as to all 
these three doctrines, "the moment that Unitarianism 
is made responsible for a belief or a denial about either 
of them, we have to encounter professions and protests 
which prove that a supposed sect contains almost as 
many creeds as individual members," 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 305 

Negatively, Unitarians are united in the denial of 
the three doctrines we have named. Positively they 
are not united on any doctrines. Dr. Ellis says that if 
one would assail Unitarianism he would find "that it 
is almost impossible to define and identify his foe." 
While, then, the new denomination vigorously attacked 
the body from which it had withdrawn, not only by 
denying its fundamental doctrines but often by cari- 
caturing them before denial, it avoided counter attacks 
in a measure by refusing to unite in avowing any posi- 
tive beliefs concerning the doctrines it denied. 

But it took strong advantage of the social prestige 
it had gained in having secured control of Harvard 
College, of the churches in the chief city of the Com- 
monwealth and of the name and property of other 
prominent historic churches. It drew to its support, 
not only those who were united to it in belief, but 
those who were attracted to it because of what they 
did not believe. Representatives sent from the towns 
and villages to the General Court at Boston heard 
from Channing and Greenwood, and other Unitarian 
ministers, eloquent utterances against slavery to creeds 
and confessions of faith, and returning to their homes 
gathered about them those who could not endure 
the severity of orthodox doctrines, those who were 
attracted to what were called broad and liberal views, 
those who enjoyed seeing distorted pictures of Cal- 
vinism demolished and those who sought to exalt 
human nature as needing no redemption from sin or 
moral regeneration. Graduates of Harvard, settling 
in the different towns in the various professions or in 
business, carried with them the prevailing sentiments 
and spirit of the college, and often became leaders in 



306 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

their communities in religious matters. The college 
also furnished ministers often of natural eloquence, 
and always of cultivated tastes, who, while controvert- 
ing evangelical doctrines, preached much that was 
honorable and of good report. Lyman Beecher wrote 
in 182 1, ''The power of corrupting the youth of the 
commonwealth by means of Cambridge is silently put- 
ting sentinels in all the churches, legislators in the 
hall and judges on the bench, and scattering every- 
where physicians, lawyers and merchants." 

Unitarians laid positive emphasis on humanitarian- 
ism, on regarding all mankind with benevolent interest, 
on seeing in all men elements of good which need only 
to be developed to attain to divine perfection. They 
defended amusements which the orthodox condemned, 
as belonging rather to one's social position and tastes 
than as in any way connected with his religious char- 
acter. The orthodox charged them with worldliness, 
and they replied with the charges of narrowness and 
bigotry. The undecided and prosperous welcomed 
Unitarianism as gospel, and the orthodox denounced 
Unitarians as enemies of Christ, denying their Lord 
who bought them. Communities were divided socially 
according to their religious affiliations, and the separat- 
ing lines were even drawn through many families. 

Turning from this unhappy picture of social and 
religious strife, we may trace briefly the important 
religious events of the last twenty years of this con- 
troversy from 1820 to 1840. 

In 1 81 9 a Unitarian church was organized in Balti- 
more, and the sermon of Dr. Channing at the ordina- 
tion of Jared Sparks as its pastor was widely circulated 
and started a new phase of the controversy, in which 




LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 307 

Professor Stuart of Andover and Professor Miller 
of Princeton took prominent part. Though both 
were opposed to Channing, they controverted each 
other concerning the doctrine of the eternal Sonship 
of Christ. Professor Woods of Andover and Professor 
Ware of Harvard were engaged at the same time in 
a discussion in which were issued '' Letters to Uni- 
tarians," '' Letters to Trinitarians and Calvinists," and 
various others. 

Amherst College was begun in 1821, and at once 
drew to its support many of the orthodox churches. 
Its application for a charter was for two years per- 
sistently opposed in the Massachusetts Legislature, 
in part because it was regarded as representing the 
orthodox faith ; but the charter was granted, with 
conditions, in 1825. 

In 1823 Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher of Litchfield, 
Conn., came to Boston to assist Dr. S. E. Dwight of 
Park Street Church in revival services. He had for 
several years taken a deep interest and an active part 
in the controversy with the Unitarians, and had ex- 
pressed grave apprehensions on account of their growth 
in power and prestige. But he was soon encouraged 
by what he saw in Boston. He wrote : " There is un- 
questionably a great and auspicious change going on 
in Boston in respect to evangelical doctrine and piety. 
The orthodox have for years been delving in their 
Sabbath Schools and other evangelical efforts, and 
their zeal and strength and momentum as to preparing 
the way for a revival are noble, and they are reaping 
their reward." The religious interest aroused by Dr. 
Beecher's preaching was deep and lasting. Not only 
were the orthodox churches greatly strengthened by 




3o8 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 309 

It, but many Unitarians became interested, impressed 
by the contrast between the spiritual character of the 
orthodox meetings and the spiritual apathy in their 
own circles. The effect of the revival was salutary 
also In bringing about a change in the nature of the 
controversy. The orthodox churches, under the pres- 
sure of the discussion, had been gradually abandoning 
the positions of the Old Calvlnists which were repellent 
to human sympathies and human reason. The extent 
• of this change is indicated in a letter written to Dr. 
Beecher by Dr. Nettleton, an eminent revivalist In 
Connecticut. He wrote : ** Why not take this ground 
with Unitarians ; we feel no concern for Old Cal- 
vinism. Let them dispute It as much as they please : 
we feel bound to make no defense. Come home to 
the evangelical system now taught in New England. 
Meet us, if at all, on our own avowed principles, or we 
shall have nothing to say to you." 

In 1826 Dr. Beecher was settled over the newly 
organized Hanover Street Church, Boston. By this 
time Unltarlanism had begun to change from Its boldly 
aggressive to a defensive policy. Henry Ware, Jr., 
pastor of the Second Church, about this time wrote : 
*' Dr. Beecher has drawn away some from our societies, 
and I suspect that orthodoxy rather gains ground. . . 
Our greatest evil is want of ministers. Openings 
appear everywhere, but we cannot make use of them. 
Our theological seminary Is so poor that it almost 
languishes. Three applicants went away because we 
had no support for them." 

Foreign missions were exciting deep and growing 
interest In the orthodox churches. In 1812 the first 
missionaries sent from America to India had been 



310 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ordained in the Tabernacle Church, Salem, and tidings 
of the fruits of their labors were now bringing great 
encouragement to their supporters. Already cheering 
results of the mission to the Hawaiian Islands, whose 
first laborers had been ordained in Park Street Church 
in 1819, were being brought back to the churches. 
Unitarians had little interest in missions, and its de- 
fenders had to confess, as did a writer in the Christian 
Examiner, that ''if Unitarianism chills and deadens 
the sensibilities of those who receive it to the miseries 
and wants of those among our fellow men who are 
unblessed with revelation, this is as strong against our 
opinions even as our opponents represent it to be." 

Home missions were also greatly stimulated by the 
trials of orthodox churches. The Massachusetts Mis- 
sionary Society, formed in 1 799, was helping feeble 
churches outside the State, but many of the churches 
which had been deprived of their property by the 
decisions of the courts also needed help, and their 
brethren rallied nobly to their support. The Domes- 
tic Missionary Society of Massachusetts was organized 
in 1 81 8 ''to assist needy churches, parishes and waste 
places" within the State. These two organizations 
were united in 1827. By the year 1830 fifty-seven 
churches of the "exiles" had been aided through this 
society, and the sympathy thus expressed and received 
bound the churches together in a union which greatly 
increased their strength. The local conferences of 
churches which have become a universal feature of 
Congregationalism originated in these years of trial. 

Periodical religious literature received a great im- 
pulse through this controversy. Since 1822 the Paiio- 
plist had been merged into the Missionary Herald. 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 311 

The Christian Spectator had been published in New 
Haven, Conn., since 1819. In 1828 appeared the first 
issue of the Spirit of the Pilgrims, which did vaHant 
service for the orthodox churches. The Unitarians 
maintained the Christian Disciple, its successor, the 
Christian Examiner and the Unitarian Advocate, and 
gathered into their pages the ablest defence of their 
position which the talent of Harvard and of the many 
scholarly men in that denomination could furnish. 

From 1828 to 1833 ^^^ defenders of orthodoxy were 
re-enforced by vigorous sermons and articles from 
Parsons Cooke of East Ware, later of Lynn, and 
George B. Cheever of Salem. Mr. Cooke especially 
created great excitement by a Fast Day sermon, in 
which he charged that Unitarians, though including 
not more than one quarter of the citizens, had suc- 
ceeded in getting possession of nine-tenths of the 
public offices. Chief Justice Parker made the grave 
mistake of attempting to answer Mr. Cooke anony- 
mously in the Christian Examiner, In which he as- 
sumed a dictatorial air and contempt for his young 
antagonist. Mr. Cooke replied with the enthusiasm of 
youth, but with facts and arguments so ably presented 
that no answer to his pamphlet could be attempted. 
Both parties had wearied of the controversy, and from 
the time when the Massachusetts Legislature In 1833 
passed an act completely severing all official relations 
between church and state, the warfare between the two 
denominations, now entirely distinct from each other, 
gradually ceased. 

Dissensions within each body diverted the atten- 
tion which the two denominations had so long 
been giving to each other. The Trinitarians be- 



312 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

came much absorbed In the metaphysical discussions 
between Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor of the theolog- 
ical department of Yale College and Dr. Bennett 
Tyler, first President of the Theological Institute at 
East Windsor, Conn., founded in 1834 to controvert 
Dr. Taylor's views. The latter institution is now 
Hartford Theological Seminary. Unitarians found 
enough to contend against in Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
pastor of the Second Church, and a little later, in 
Theodore Parker. Mr. Emerson withdrew in 1832 
from his pastorate and from the ministry. Mr. Parker 
became one of Boston's most brilliant preachers, but 
was disowned by conservative Unitarians, and for many 
years drew large audiences, though he could count 
but few allies among Unitarian ministers. 

Looking back over the half century and more which 
has passed since the scenes we have described were 
enacted, it is possible to give a just estimate of the 
relative strength and weakness of both parties in the 
conflict. 

Orthodoxy was strong In Its agreement In essential 
doctrines with the Christian Church In all ages, in its 
inheritance from the founders of New England, In Its 
loyalty to the Holy Scriptures as the authoritative 
revelation of the will of God, and in the power of the 
preached gospel of salvation for sinners through faith 
In Jesus Christ as the divine Saviour. The Issue of 
the conflict proved also that the ancient polity of Con- 
gregationalism was sufficient to withstand even so 
severe a strain as this, to slough off inconsistent asso- 
ciations, and to guard the ancient faith in the care of 
the churches which held It, which remained united 
through the storm and came out of it more thoroughly 




313 



314 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

homogeneous and better equipped for their work than 
before the disturbance manifested itself. 

Unltarlanlsm was strong In Its exaltation of human 
nature, In Its emphasis on the fatherhood of God, and 
on uprightness of character and benevolent feelings 
toward all men, In having leaders of natural eloquence 
and cultivated minds, In possessing Harvard College, 
the great preponderance of wealth and social prestige 
In Boston and In the control of the large majority of 
the public offices of the commonwealth. 

Orthodoxy was weak In the undue emphasis which 
it laid on some of the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism, 
in the tendency of leaders to become absorbed in 
metaphysical subtleties, and to dispute concerning 
them, and In underestimating the graces of intel- 
lectual and social culture. Unitarlanism was weak In 
the feebleness of its sense of sin and of its demand for 
repentance and submission to God ; in its practical 
indifference to the spread of Christian faith through 
the world ; In the fact that It was the offspring of 
doubt, and that it proclaimed suggestions of doubt 
whose growth was fostered rather than checked In its 
disciples, and in the admitted fact that its distinctive 
doctrines do not spring from the Bible nor accord with 
its plain meaning. Dr. Ellis, In an address before 
the Unitarian Club of Boston in 1882, prefacing his 
remarks with the statement that he made them with 
the utmost deliberation after fifty years' study of the 
Bible, said of it : 

" The vast majority of its readers, following its 
letter, its obvious sense. Its natural meaning, and 
yielding to the impression which some of Its emphatic 
texts make upon them, find In It Orthodoxy. Only 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 315 

that kind of Ingenious, special, discriminative, and, In 
candor, I must add, forced treatment which It receives 
from us, Liberals, can make the book teach anything 
but Orthodoxy. The Evangelical sects, so called, are 
clearly right In maintaining that their view of Scrip- 
ture and of Its doctrines draws a deep and wide 
division of creed between them and ourselves." 

Unltarlanism has rendered to Orthodoxy valuable 
service by turning it from side Issues In religion to 
the defence and proclamation of essential truths, by 
driving It out from behind the untenable fortresses of 
old Calvinism, by leading it to a truer sense of the 
fatherhood of God, and by persuading it to a greater 
appreciation of the dignity of human nature. 

Unltarlanism, so far as growth In numbers Is con- 
cerned, Is a complete disappointment to Its advocates. 
Dr. Ellis says that when the controversy opened Uni- 
tarians were confident that, before fifty years should be 
passed, " Orthodoxy would have become a thing of the 
past, while Unltarlanism would be the prevailing type 
of religion." 

Twenty-five years after the controversy broke out 
in 1815 there were In Massachusetts about 130 Uni- 
tarian churches of which the parishes of 96 had been 
originally orthodox, while about 30 had been organized 
by parishes from which orthodox churches had removed. 
There were at that time 4i4TrinItarian Congregational 
churches In the State, 197 of which had been organized 
since 181 5. The growth of the Baptist and Methodist 
denominations had also been constant and rapid. Ac- 
cording to the United States census for 1890 there 
were in this country 421 Unitarian churches with 
67,749 members, more than half of whom are 



3l6 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

In Massachusetts. The number of Congregational 
churches in 1890 was 4868, with 512,771 members. 

It is impossible to represent accurately the doctrinal 
belief of Unitarians, since they differ as widely among 
themselves as the denomination differs from Trinita- 
rian denominations. The right wing of the body 
almost touches Orthodoxy. The left wing, as abun- 
dant utterances of prominent Unitarians testify, hardly 
touches Christianity at all. Dr. Bellows said, in 1876, 
of the right of anyone to be a Unitarian : ''He may be 
a pantheist, or an atheist, and If he calls himself a 
Christian, and is not immoral in life, he may join the 
Unitarian Conference, and claim as good ecclesiastical 
standing as the most conservative believer." In 1886 
the Western Unitarian Conference refused to adopt 
the name '' Christian." M. J. Savage, pastor of Unity 
Church, Boston, has recently said : ''We are gradually 
drifting away from the idea that the Bible has any 
special significance or authority. We have no reliance 
on any historic person like Christ." This was precisely 
what was predicted In the time of the conflict. 

The causes also of the failure of Unitarianism have 
been most forcibly explained by those most closely 
Identified with it. To no man did it owe so much for 
its temporary success as to Dr. W. E. Channing. In 
1839, near the close of his forty years' labors as a Uni- 
tarian minister, he wrote : " I would that I could look 
to Unitarianism with more hope. But this system 
was, at Its recent revival, a protest of the understand- 
ing against absurd dogmas, rather than the work of 
deep religious principle, and was early paralyzed by 
the mixture of material philosophy, and fell too much 
into the hands of scholars and political reformers, and 



THE UNITARIAN DEPARTURE. 317 

the consequence is a want of vitality and force which 

gives us little hope of its accomplishing much under 
• ... • 

Its present auspices or in its present form." 

Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in a recent address, said 
that Dr. Palfrey, one of the founders of the Unitarian 
Association, once remarked to him of the period be- 
tween 1810 and 1830: *' We governed Boston, and 
we governed Massachusetts ; and they let us do it 
because we did it so well." Dr. Hale asks why the 
Unitarians do not do it now ; and answers : " Because 
the aristocracy of Massachusetts tried to preach the 
gospel to the people of America ; but for the lack 
of a miracle of Pentecost, they could not speak the 
language." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 

WHILE the Unitarian controversy was withdraw- 
ing from the churches of Massachusetts a portion 
of their strength, the Congregationalists of Connecti- 
cut were entering into a compact with the Presbyterian 
Church which resulted in crippling and almost destroy- 
ing the growth of Congregationalism in the Middle 
and Western States for half a century. 

Congregational churches, which have disappeared or 
have become Presbyterian, were formed in Eastern 
New York in the seventeenth century, and many more 
in the eighteenth, a few of which still survive. In 
the list of churches of the New York State Association, 
including Long Island, twenty are named which were 
formed previous to 1800, five of them before the close 
of the Revolutionary War. 

Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed that the 
patents which had been issued to them as colonies 
covered a large part of the State of New York. In 
1786 commissioners granted to Massachusetts in set- 
tlement of these claims the right to purchase from the 
Indians a large tract, amounting to millions of acres, 
known as Western New York. The land was pur- 
chased and advertised for sale in exchange for culti- 
vated farms in New England. In 1790 Congress gave 
to Connecticut, in lieu of its claim on New York 

318 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 319 

lands, the title to more than three million acres south 
of Lake Erie, which came to be known as the Western 
Reserve, or New Connecticut. The tide of immi- 
grants from New England soon poured rapidly into 
both these sections. But these immigrants were 
mostly poor and had to overcome the difficulties which 
beset settlers in the wilderness. Their brethren in 
New England promptly recognized their need of aid 
to maintain religious institutions. As early as 1784 
Connecticut ministers went on short mission tours to 
the '* Western Country." In 1788 the General Asso- 
ciation of Connecticut recommended all the local asso- 
ciations to send out pastors on brief missions. In 
I 792 eight pastors were named by the General Associ- 
ation to go to the new fields for four months each. 
Their compensation was to be $4.50 per week, with $4 
a week additional to supply their pulpits. In 1798 the 
General Association organized itself as the Connecticut 
Missionary Society. In 1800 the Connecticut Evan- 
gelical Magazine was begun, to spread tidings of 
missionary work, and its profits were turned into the 
treasury of the Missionary Society. 

During all this time, and indeed before the war of the 
Revolution, Connecticut Congregationalists were being 
drawn into closer sympathy with the Presbyterians of 
the Middle States. The fear of the inroads of Episco- 
pacy led to a joint convention in 1766 of representatives 
of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia and of the 
General Association of Connecticut, on the proposal of 
the Presbyterian body ; and this convention continued 
to meet annually till war began in 1775. After the 
war the development of Unitarian tendencies in Massa- 
chusetts confirmed the Connecticut churches in their 



320 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

consociational system according to the Saybrook Plat- 
form as protecting them against ministers who practi- 
cally renounced their faith, and the same tendencies 
quickened their feeling of kinship for Presbyterians. 
In 1 790 the General Association expressed its desire for 
closer union with Presbyterians, and fou: years later, by 
agreement between the General Association and the 
Presbyterian General Assembly, delegates from each 
body attended the meeting of the other with full right 
to vote. Connecticut Congregationalists seemed even 
willing in their eagerness to repudiate Massachusetts 
Unitarianism and to affiliate with Presbyterianism, to 
renounce their name and history ; for in 1799 ^^^^ Hart- 
ford North Association declared that the churches of 
Connecticut ** are not now.and never were from the earli- 
est period of our settlement Congregational churches 
according to the ideas and forms of church order con- 
tained in the book of discipline called the Cambridge 
Platform." In 1805 the General Association character- 
ized the Saybrook Platform as *' the Ecclesiastical Con- 
stitution of the Presbyterian Church of Connecticut." 
It was to be expected, then, that when both denom- 
inations were found to have representatives in the new 
Western Country needing missionary aid, some form 
of union for this work would be brought about between 
the two bodies. Jonathan Edwards the younger had 
been for thirty years a Congregational pastor in Con- 
necticut, the most of the time at New Haven. In 1799 
he became president of Union College, which was in a 
section of New York then filling up with settlers. In 
1800, when he was attending the Connecticut General 
Association as a delegate of the Presbyterian General 
Assembly, the question was raised, probably by him, of 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 32 1 

the union of the two denominations in their missionary 
work. Edwards was appointed on a committee to pre- 
pare a report on the subject. As a result, the Connecti- 
cut General Association appointed a committee to 
consider measures *' to establish, as far as possible, an 
uniform system of church government " for Presby- 
terians and Congregationalists in the new settlements. 
The next year in May the General Assembly appointed 
a committee for the same purpose, with President 
Edwards as chairman, and its report was by the same 
assembly adopted. The next month it was also 
adopted by the Connecticut General Association. 
This report was the Plan of Union, the substance of 
which is as follows : 

*' If In the new settlements any church of the Con- 
gregational order shall settle a minister of the Presby- 
terian order, that church may, if they choose, still 
conduct their discipline according to Congregational 
principles, settling their difficulties among themselves, 
or by a council mutually agreed upon for that purpose. 
But, if any difficulty shall exist between the minister 
and the church, or any member of it, it shall be referred 
to the Presbytery to which the minister shall belong, 
provided both parties agree to It ; if not, to a council 
consisting of an equal number of Presbyterians and 
Congregationalists, agreed upon by both parties. 

'' If a Presbyterian church shall settle a minister of 
Congregational principles, that church may still con- 
duct their discipline according to Presbyterian prin- 
ciples, excepting that if a difficulty arise between him 
and his church, or any member of it, the cause shall be 
tried by the association to which the said minister 
shall belong, provided both parties agree to it ; other- 



322 ' CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

wise by a council, one-half Congregationalists arwd the 
other Presbyterians mutually agreed upon by the 
parties. 

*' If any congregation consist partly of those who hold 
the Congregational form of discipline and partly of 
those who hold the Presbyterian form, we recommend 
to both parties that this be no obstruction to their 
uniting in one church and settling a minister ; and that 
in this case the church choose a standing committee 
from the communicants of said church, whose business 
it shall be to call to account every member of the 
church who shall conduct himself inconsistently with 
the laws of Christianity, and to give judgment on 
such conduct. That if the person condemned by 
their judgment be a Presbyterian, he shall have 
liberty to appeal to the Presbytery ; if he be a 
Congregationalist he shall have liberty to appeal to 
the body of the male communicants of the church. 
In the former case the determination of the Presbytery 
shall be final unless the church shall consent to a fur- 
ther appeal to the synod or to the General Assembly ; 
and in the latter case, if the party condemned shall 
wish for a trial by a mutual council, the cause shall be 
referred to such a council. And provided the said 
standing committee of an}^ church shall depute one 
of themselves to attend the Presbytery, he may have 
the same right to sit and act in the Presbytery as a 
ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church." 

There can be no question as to the honesty of either 
party in entering into this agreement. Its apparent 
fairness also to both must be conceded. It provided 
that a Congregational church with a Presbyterian 
pastor and a Presbyterian church with a Congrega- 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 323 

tional pastor should each retain its own poHty, while 
the pastor, if he came into discipline, should be tried 
by the body to which he belonged ; or if both parties 
could not agree to this, by a mutual council composed 
of an equal number from both denominations. It did 
indeed provide that a church composed of members of 
both denominations should have a standing committee 
on discipline, and that a Congregational member under 
discipline could get his case before the communicants 
in the church only by appeal from the committee. 
But early Congregational history furnished precedents 
for such government. Where churches were altogether 
Presbyterian or altogether Congregational they might 
maintain their own polity without reference to any Plan 
of Union. 

It seems to have been demonstrated also that im- 
portant advantages resulted from this plan in the early 
years of its working. The Christian families in West- 
ern New^ York and Ohio included both Congrega- 
tionalists from New England and Presbyterians from 
Pennsylvania. Each preferred its own polity. But 
they were too few to sustain each a separate church in 
the same settlement. They were a long distance from 
their home land. The journey from Connecticut to 
the Western Reserve occupied six weeks. The settle- 
ments were remote from each other and generally 
without roads connecting them. The people held a 
common faith, and they counted Christian fellowship a 
great privilege. The labors of the early missionaries, 
some of whom w^ere Congregationalists sent out by 
the Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
missionary societies, and others Presbyterians from 
the synods of New York and Pennsylvania, were re- 



324 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

warded by the planting of churches and by many con- 
versions. In the beginning of the century, in many 
settlements, especially in Ohio, there were remarkable 
revivals of religion. 

It seems plain also that Presbyterianism finally 
prevailed as much because Congregationalists were 
indifferent to the maintenance of their own polity 
as because Presbyterians were active in pushing theirs. 
In Western New York Congregationalism was earliest 
planted and for the first generation was of strongest 
growth. According to a writer in the Congregational 
Quarterly for 1859, there are records of nineteen 
Congregational and four Presbyterian churches or- 
ganized in this region before 1800; while during the 
first fifteen years of the present century sixty Con- 
gregational and eighteen Presbyterian churches were 
formed. The missionaries also were supported in the 
main by Congregational societies. Large and strong 
associations of Congregational ministers and churches 
were also formed, such as the Black River, Oaeida, 
Middle, Ontario and Susauehanna associations. 
During the first decade after the Plan of Union 
was adopted there was an apparent prospect that 
Western New York would become as thoroughly 
Congregational as New England. 

In the Western Reserve these two denominations 
had nearly equal advantages at the start. The 
first minister was William Wick, a Presbyterian. 
He was ordained at Youngstown, O., September 3, 
1800. A few weeks later Joseph Badger, leaving 
his pastorate at Blanford, Mass., came to the Reserve 
under appointment of the Connecticut Missionary 
Society. 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 325 

Presbyterian ministers were most numerous from 
1806 to 181 2, but the majority of the church members 
were Congregational. Thomas Barr, a Presbyterian 
pastor at EucHd, in his autobiography, says : " The 
Reserve was mainly settled by New Englanders. 
The Christians among them were generally Congre- 
gationalists, especially for the first four or five years. 
The churches they formed were either purely Congre- 
gational, or on a mixed plan which was only a slight 
modification. In nine-tenths of these churches there 
were no real Presb^^terian members." Several Con- 
gregational churches were established in the southern 
part of Ohio about the beginning of the century, the 
first being at Marietta in 1796. These churches 
formed the Muskingum Association, meeting first at 
Springfield in 1809. The first Congregational church 
on the Reserve was at Austinburg in 1801, followed 
by that at Hudson in 1802, and others soon after. 
These churches, before any of them had settled 
pastors, organized '' The Ecclesiastical Convention of 
New Connecticut." By 1814 Congregational ministers 
were again largely in the majority, and the churches 
were nearly all Congregational. 

Yet within the next twenty years churches disap- 
peared from the Congregational roll, associations 
w^ere dissolved, small presbyteries grew in size and 
power, synods w^ere formed ; and Presbyterian ism 
came to be the dominant order both in New York 
and in the Western Reserve. A Presbyterian con- 
temporary observer estimated that by 1828 a result of 
the working of the Plan of Union had been the 
addition of more than six hundred churches to the 
Presbyterian body ; and a careful student of the 



326 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

history of Congregationalism, Rev. Dr. A. H. Ross, 
recently affirmed that '' the Plan of Union has trans- 
formed over two thousand churches, which were in 
origin and usages Congregational, into Presbyterian 
churches." 

These disastrous results to Congregationalism were 
brought about as much by the efforts of Congregation- 
alists as by Presbyterians. Presbyteries were organ- 
ized and ministers were urged to join them without 
giving up their connection with their own associations. 
Churches were invited to come under the care of Pres- 
bytery while they might retain connection with their 
own ecclesiastical bodies. A church might come under 
the Presbytery by a majority vote of Its members. It 
could not withdraw, unless by consent of the Presby- 
tery, without a unanimous vote of Its members. The 
idea was fostered that stronger ecclesiastical bonds 
w^ere necessary in the new settlements than in New 
England to guard the purity of the churches. Con- 
gregationalists who aided the movement from a dis- 
tance adopted this idea with even more enthusiasm 
than the Presbyterians. The Missionary Society of 
Connecticut instructed its missionaries to use their 
efforts to promote union between themselves and the 
Presbyterians. A writer in the Recorder says that 
*' the churches evidently showed great reluctance to 
enter into any organization which should have the 
name or any of the forms of Presbyterianism," but that 
such forms were " imposed on reluctant churches by 
the trustees of the Missionary Society of Connecticut 
and their missionaries." The defection of Unitarian 
churches in Massachusetts was adduced as an exam- 
ple of results to be expected from the loose ties which 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 327 

held Congregational churches together ; until in the 
Middle and Western States the idea became prevalent 
that all Congregationalists were to be regarded with 
suspicion as unsound in doctrine. It came to be 
generally accepted, both in New England and out of 
it, that Congregationalism was indigenous in the New 
England States, but could not flourish beyond them, 
and that its western boundary was the Hudson River. 
Professor Moses Stuart said that in 1829 the directors 
of the American Education Society were accustomed 
to recommend ** all young men who go from New 
England into the boundaries of the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church to unite with the Presby- 
teries and not to hold on upon Congregationalism," 
and that '' nearly one-half of the young men who have 
gone from Andover Theological Seminary have be- 
come Presbyterians." Even New England churches 
came to look with indifference, if not with suspicion, 
on the Congregational churches which struggled to 
maintain their existence in the West, and advised their 
members who emigrated to the newer sections to 
become Presbyterians ; and they freely poured out 
their gifts of money and missionaries to build up 
Presbyterianism with the advancing tide of emigration. 
But if this Plan of Union operated to undermine 
Congregationalism in the West, it proved to be no less 
harmful as an element of discord among Presbyterians. 
The churches formed by this plan eventually intro- 
duced inharmonious elements into the Presbyterian 
body. As early as 1825 the right of representatives of 
these churches, " committeemen " as they were called, 
to sit in the General Assembly was questioned. In 
1832 the Assembly voted that the Plan of Union did 



328 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

not authorize any ''committeeman" to sit in synod or 
General Assembly. 

The Plan had led the Presbyterian Church to join 
with Congregationalists both in home and foreign mis- 
sionary work. The American Board and the American 
Home Missionary Society, while founded by Congre- 
gationalists, came to represent both denominations; 
but a large section of the Presbyterian Church, espe- 
cially its southern portion, believed that its missionary 
work could better be carried on by organizations under 
its own control. Those who strongly held this con- 
viction were also becoming alarmed at what they 
considered new indications of doctrinal unsoundness 
of Congregationalists. In 1822 a theological depart- 
ment was opened in Yale College, with Dr. N. W. 
Taylor at its head ; and in a few years the " New 
Haven Divinity" came to be prominently discussed in 
ecclesiastical gatherings. It was a modification of 
Hopkinsianism, which itself many Presbyterians re- 
garded as hostile to Calvinism. New measures in con- 
ducting revivals, in which Rev. C. G. Finney, after- 
ward President of Oberlin College, was prominent, 
also excited much alarm. 

In 1835 representative Presbyterian opposers of the 
Plan of Union, who had by that time come to be 
known as the Old School party, held a conference just 
before the meeting of the General Assembly and 
determined to force a division from the New School 
party. They did not succeed that year or the next, but 
they worked steadily toward that end, with constantly 
increasing excitement throughout the denomination. 
In 1837 the Old School party had a decided majority 
in the General Assembly, which, after long and sharp 




REV. CHARLES G. FINNEY. 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 329 

discussion, abrogated the Plan of Union, declaring 
that the American Home Missionary Society and the 
American Education Society were "exceedingly in- 
jurious to the peace and purity of the Presbyterian 
Church," and cut off from that body the four synods 
which contained the churches formed under the Plan of 
Union. These four exscinded synods were the West- 
ern Reserve, Utica, Geneva and Genesee. These 
synods were ''declared to be out of the ecclesiastical 
connection of the Presbyterian Church, and not in 
form or In part an Integral portion of said Church." 
The next year when the Assembly met the New School 
party, finding that they were denied their right of 
membership, organized on the floor of the house by the 
appointment of a moderator and clerks and withdrew 
to another meeting house, where it proceeded to busi- 
ness. Thus the division was consummated, and the 
New School Presbyterian Church was formed. 

The excitement and bitterness between the two par- 
ties were enhanced by the ecclesiastical trials for heresy 
of three Presbyterian ministers. Dr. George Dufiield of 
Carlisle, Pa., Dr. Albert Barnes of the First Presbyte- 
rian Church of Philadelphia, which had been organized 
in 1698 as a Congregational church, and Dr. Lyman 
Beecher,_ who had gone from Boston In 1830 to be a 
professor In Lane Seminary and pastor of the Second 
Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. All three were 
finally acquitted and became members of the New 
School body. 

If this attempt at division had not succeeded, it Is 
probable that Congregationallsts In the Middle and 
Interior States would earlier have gathered strength to 
withdraw from their connection with Presbyterians and 



330 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

to form separate ecclesiastical bodies. But their sym- 
pathies were strongly with the New School party, and 
while the conflict was pending their leaders were urged 
not to desert their friends. On questions most promi- 
nent in the minds of Christians throughout the country 
New School Presbyterians and Congregationalists 
were closely in sympathy. They were agreed in the 
agitation against slavery, which was already assuming 
large proportions. After the division the New School 
body continued its missionary w^ork both at home and 
abroad through the societies which they maintained 
in common with Congregationalists. Both denomina- 
tions were also in hearty doctrinal agreement. 

Yet already, even before the division of 1838, a spirit 
of denominational enthusiasm was awakening among 
Congregationalists. One source of their weakness was 
their want of acquaintance with one another. There 
had been no general gathering of representatives of the 
denomination for nearly two hundred years. In New 
England Congregationalists had strengthened them- 
selves by state associations, but the effort to follow 
their example in the early history of Western New York 
had failed. In 1834, however, the General Association 
of New York was formed, and in 1836 the General 
Association of the Western Reserve was organized. 
Though this latter body after some time dissolved, 
another and finally successful attempt was made by the 
organization of a consociation in 1841' of the church 
in Marietta with several others. This body called a 
convention at Mansfield in 1852 in which forty-four 
churches were represented, and this was the beginning 
of the State Conference of Ohio. The enthusiasm of 
that meeting and the interest kindled by the gathering 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 33 1 

of the churches Is thus pictured in a report In the 
Christian Press of Cincinnati: "Those who had 
stood long years alone, and had felt the discourage- 
ment of isolation and had been cut off very much from 
association and sympathy, were softened to tears when 
they looked round upon their assembled brethren and 
felt that the hour so longed for and prayed for had 
come." 

Meanwhile also the churches in neighboring States 
were forming associations and beginning to realize 
their vitality for growth and expansion. The Iowa 
Association w^as formed In 1840, that of Michigan In 
1842, and Illinois in 1844. In 1846 a very important 
convention of representatives of Western Congrega- 
tional churches was held in Michigan City, Ind., which 
unanimously declared their adherence to the funda- 
mental doctrines of the gospel as set forth by the 
masters of New England theology. This affirmation 
by the churches of the West of the faith and polity of 
the fathers did much to convince their New England 
brethren that the Congregationalists east and west 
were one In spirit as well as in name. 

Before many years serious difficulties began to 
arise in connection with the administration of the 
home missionary work of Presbyterians and Congre- 
gationalists through the same society. Each denom- 
ination felt that its own interests were not sufficiently 
considered in the planting and support of new churches. 
Some of the presbyteries acted independently of the 
society, helping feeble churches of their own order in 
the west. Some individual Concrreo^ationalists and 
local churches did a similar service for some mis- 
sionary Congregational churches. The Home Mis- 



332 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

sionary Society tried various means to induce or 
compel the churches to send all their gifts through 
its treasury, but found it difficult to please, in its 
distribution of funds, two denominations which could 
hardly help being rivals as they entered into the 
newly settled sections of the country. The final 
separation of the society from its alliance with Pres- 
byterians was caused by the action of the Alton 
Presbytery. This Presbytery, since 1840, had co-op- 
erated with the Home Missionary Society as its 
auxiliary, through a committee of missions. But in 
1856 the Presbytery resolved ''to employ two mission- 
aries under the sole and only direction of this Pres- 
bytery, with no commission from any other source 
save the Lord Jesus Christ." From that time the 
Presbytery ceased to collect funds for the Home 
Missionary Society, but made collections for this 
separate work from churches sustained by that 
society, and denounced the society as ''aiming a 
deathblow at their Presbyterial missions." At the 
same time the Presbytery continued to seek and 
obtain aid for its feeble churches from the Home 
Missionary Society. The contributions of the Pres- 
byterians to the society fell from thirty-two per 
cent, of its receipts in 1855 to nineteen per cent, 
in i860. In 1 86 1 the separation between the two 
denominations in home missionary work was consum- 
mated. Such experiences serve to explain the grow- 
ing disposition in each denomination to consolidate its 
strength and to carry on its work independently. 

At last the new life which for years had been 
kindling found a way to express itself. In response 
to an invitation from the General Association of New 



THE DISASTROUS PLAN OF UNION. 333 

York the first general meeting of the Congregational- 
ists of the United States since the Cambridge synod 
of 1648 was held at Albany, beginning October 5, 
1852. By that convention the Plan of Union was 
declared at an end. Congregationalists had discov- 
ered that their polity was adapted to the entire 
country, that they had a divinely appointed mission 
to give the gospel of Christ to the whole world, and 
that in order to carry out this mission it was necessary 
that they should know one another, and should become 
affiliated as one body in such a manner that they could 
act intelligently and unitedly in fulfilling their great 
work. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 

MODERN Congregationalism from its beginning 
was essentially a missionary movement. Its 
founders were drawn to the New World, not only that 
they might plant a commonwealth where they could 
worship God unmolested, but also in the hope that 
they might give the gospel to the native inhabitants of 
the new land. This missionary spirit grew with their 
growth both in themselves and in their descendants. 
As the colonies expanded into provinces and these 
into States united and free, the churches promptly 
extended their aid to their brethren who were struof- 
gling to plant Christian institutions in new settlements, 
and in due time,, with their prayers and gifts, they 
entered on plans to carry into distant lands the truth 
which they held most precious. 

Congregationalists were in the front rank in found- 
ing this Republic, in securing its independence of 
Great Britain and in framing its political institutions ; 
but their most thrilling history is the record of their 
missionary enterprises at home and abroad. In these 
are to be found the secret and evidence of their vitality 
and their promise for the future. Their missionary 
societies began as they were called into being by the 
necessities of particular times. In their earlier history 
other denominations co-operated with them. These 

334 




RUFUS ANDERSON, D. D. 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 335 

organizations were voluntary societies established by 
individuals and not by the churches. They at first 
overlapped one another, and have gradually come into 
their present condition and relations with each other 
through natural experience and mutual understanding. 
Necessarily the account of them to be given in this 
volume must be far briefer than they deserve. But 
their doings have been woven into the entire history ; 
and in this chapter only the outlines of the societies 
now existing can be described. They have been 
placed in the order of their organization. 

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 

Missions. 

The beginnings of American foreign missions may 
be traced back to a few men and women of large faith 
and consecrated spirit. One of these women was the 
mother of Samuel J. Mills. He entered Williams Col- 
lege in 1806. In that year a missionary prayer meet- 
ing was held by a few of the students under the shelter 
of a haystack, and from the date of that meeting 
the history of American foreign missions practically 
begins. 

Two years later a society was formed in the college 
for the purpose of beginning ''a mission to the 
heathen." From Williams College Mills, Gordon 
Hall and James Richards went to Andover Seminary 
and there associated others with them in the same 
purpose. In 1810 Mills, Newell, Nott and Judson 
requested the Massachusetts General Association, 
which that year met at Bradford, to further their pur- 
pose to preach the gospel to heathen lands. The 
association welcomed the petition of the young men 



336 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and the American Board was organized with nine 
commissioners, five from Massachusetts and four from 
Connecticut, selected by the association for one year's 
service. The next year the General Association of 
Connecticut selected its own commissioners. The 
receipts for the first year were $999.52. The next 
year, by the will of Mrs. Mary Norris of Salem, whose 
husband had been one of the founders of Andover 
Seminary, the Board received $30,000. This bequest 
probably was one of the reasons which prompted the 
Prudential Committee to apply to the Massachusetts 
Legislature for a charter, which however was bitterly 
opposed, and not granted till 181 2. By the charter 
the Board was made a self-perpetuating body. In 
that year, February 6, Judson, Hall, Newell, Nott and 
Rice were ordained in the Tabernacle Church, Salem, 
to establish a mission in Asia. In June Judson and 
Newell, with their wives, landed at Calcutta, but were 
ordered home by the British East India Company. 
They found passage on a vessel bound for the Isle of 
France, which they reached after a long voyage with 
many hardships. There Mrs. Harriet Newell died at 
the age of eighteen, after sending home to her friends 
messages of faith and love. The story of her brief 
life, and her devotion to the cause to which she gave 
it, kindled in this country an enthusiasm for missions 
which doubtless accomplished far more than she could 
have done if she had lived to do actual service in the 
field. Not only did money for the work flow freely 
into the treasury, but multitudes dated their conver- 
sion from the time of their reading the memoir of this 
missionary girl, and churches sprang into being from 
the story of her willing self-sacrifice. 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 337 

Judson and Rice became Baptists, and their change 
of views led to the formation of a Baptist Missionary 
Society in 1814. Hall and Nott finally reached Bom- 
bay, where they gained permission to remain, and by 
them the first mission of the Board, that to the Mah- 
rattas of Western India, was established, in 181 3. In 
1 8 16 Daniel Poor, with four associates, opened a mis- 
sion in Ceylon on the Island of Jaffna. In 181 7 a 
mission was beo^un with the Cherokee Indians in 
Georgia, and in 18 18 with the Choctaws in Mississippi. 

In 1819 a company of seventeen persons sailed from 
Boston to begin a mission in the Hawaiian Islands, 
then known as the Sandwich Islands. Henry Oboo- 
kiah, one of the islanders, had found his way to New 
Haven, Conn., when fourteen years old, in care of a 
kind sea captain, and the story of the conversion and. 
early death of the heathen boy produced a flame of 
missionary zeal like that kindled by the missionary 
girl whose body had been buried in the Isle of France. 
That same year two young missionaries sailed for the 
Holy Land to win back to Christ the people who lived 
where He had lived. 

In 1823 the Syrian mission was begun by Messrs. 
Goodell and Bird at Beirut. In 1829 Bridgman and 
Abell began the work of the Board in China, at 
Canton. In 1830 Smith and Dwight went on an 
exploring tour through Armenia and Persia. In 183 1 
Joseph King opened a mission at Athens for the 
Greeks, and Goodell began at Constantinople what is 
now the Western Turkey Mission. In 1833 missions 
were commenced In Slam, Singapore, Persia and West 
Africa. The Madura mission was begun in 1834, and 
that to the Zulus, in southeastern Africa, in 1835. 



338 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

During these earlier years of missions comparatively 
little was known of the countries where they were car- 
ried on. Communication between these lands and our 
own was slow and infrequent. News of the travels and 
explorations of missionaries was received with great 
interest. Accounts of their hardships and often of 
early death kindled among the young people in the 
churches at home the spirit of self-sacrifice for the 
salvation of the world. Tidings came of revivals of 
religion in mission fields, of the brave endurance of 
persecution by native converts and of the eagerness 
v/ith which some of the heathen welcomed the gospel 
of Christ. The Hawaiian Islands were especially a 
center of great interest. A wonderful revival there in 
1837-38 brought multitudes into the churches, whose 
membership in 1840 numbered sixteen thousand five 
hundred and eighty-seven. Ten years more passed, 
and the Hawaiian Missionary Society was formed at 
Honolulu to carry the gospel to the islands of Micro- 
nesia. In 1863 the Hawaiian Islands were regarded 
as practically Christianized, and the American Board 
withdrew from that field. 

But not less interesting tidings during all these 
years came from other countries. India, Turkey, 
Syria, China and Africa furnished wonderful expe- 
riences of the providence of God opening closed 
doors for His Word to enter in. The children of 
American churches took part gladly In the great work 
of converting the world. In 1856 they contributed 
over $28,000 to equip the first missionary vessel, the 
''Morning Star," for service In the Pacific Ocean. Since 
then this ''Star" has had three successors, all built by 
children's gifts. In 1869 R^v. D. C. Greene sailed for 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 



339 



Japan, the first missionary of the Board to that coun- 
try. The history of missions in Japan has not been 
surpassed by the wonderful records of any land where 
missionaries have preached. 

The Doshisha, founded at Kyoto in 1876 through 
the zeal of Joseph Neesima, has become one of the 



••^v^^yvvv i / tt* 




THE DOSHISHA, KYOTO, JAPAN. 



leading educational Institutions of that country, while 
the story of his life is unsurpassed In interest in mis- 
sionary annals. To Hon. Alpheus Hardy, a Boston 
merchant, for many years chairman of the Prudential 
Committee of the Board, Is largely due the successful 
establishment of this university for Japan. Mr. Hardy 
first befriended Neeslma, when he had found his way 
to this country on one of Mr. Hardy's ships, received 



340 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

him into his family, enabled him to gain a thorough 
education at Phillips Academy, Amherst College and 
Andover Seminary, and gave generously toward the 
work which, under the wise counsel of his benefactor, 
Neesima successfully inaugurated in his native land. 
The Board has had a no less honorable part in 
establishing missions in the great continent of Africa 
as during the last fifteen years that country has been 
explored and opened to travel and commerce. 

Certain other denominations, attracted by the en- 
thusiasm for the work, had very early co-operated with 
this parent society, but later they successively withdrew 
and organized missionary societies of their own. The 
Old School Presbyterians took this step at the time of 
the division in 1837, the Dutch Reformed Churches in 
1857, and the New School Presbyterians soon after the 
reunion in 1870. Some missions were thus amicably 
transferred to the care of the new societies, but the 
work of the Board and its receipts have nevertheless 
been constantly enlarging. In 18 10 its income was 
not quite $1000 for the year, in 1820 nearly $40,000, in 
1840 over $240,000, in 1870 over $460,000 and in 1892 
$840,804. At present, In 1894, the field includes 20 
missions with 183 ordained missionaries, 10 of whom 
are physicians, 18 men not ordained and 356 women, 
making the total of missionaries of the Board 557. 
There are also 2741 native workers, of whom 768 are 
pastors and preachers. There are 444 churches with 
a membership of 41,522. In 1893, 3461 were received 
on confession of faith. During its history the churches 
of the Board have received to membership over 1 20,000 
persons. 

In recent years, especially, the educational work has 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 34I 

made great progress. There are now under the care 
of the Board 1022 common schools, 65 schools for 
girls, and 80 high, training and theological schools. In 
the latter are 3819 young men, many of them preparing 
for the ministry. More than 50,000 persons are under 
Christian instruction through these schools. Some of 
the higher Institutions are widely known and are foun- 
tains of great influence for good. Robert College, 
Constantinople, was begun In 1863 through the influ- 
ence of missionaries of the Board. Among the most 
famous colleges now in the care of the Board, besides 
the Doshlsha, already mentioned, are Central Turkey 
College at Aintab, established in 1875 ; Euphrates 
College at Harpoot, 1878 ; Constantinople Home, 
1870, now chartered as the American College for 
Girls ; Central Turkey Girls' College at Marash, 1886; 
Ahmednagar and Pasumalai Institutions, recognized by 
the government as colleges in 1886. 

The American Board has been specially fortunate in 
having as secretaries and other officers men of great 
ability and consecrated character, who have given to 
it long terms of service. Its earliest secretaries were 
Rev. Samuel Worcester and Jeremiah Evarts. From 
1832 to 1864 Dr. Rufus Anderson was its correspond- 
ing secretary. He made visits to the missions in the 
Hawaiian Islands, in the Levant, in Turkey and India. 
The literature he has produced on the subject of mis- 
sions is of great value. His name is one of the most 
illustrious on the rail of those who have planned and 
directed American foreign missions. He was succeeded 
in 1866 by Rev. Dr. N. G. Clark, who still remains in 
office. Among honored names in the secretaryships of 
the Board are Rev. Messrs. S. B. Treat, J. O. Means 



342 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and E. K. Alden, the last named having served from 
187610 1893. Rev. Dr. A. C. Thompson was for forty- 
four years a member of the Prudential Committee and 
its chairman for seven years previous to 1893 when he 
resigned. The list of its presidents is a remarkable 
succession of honored names — John Treadwell, Joseph 
Lyman, John Cotton Smith, Theodore Frelinghuysen, 
Mark Hopkins ; and since the death of the last named 
in 1887 the office has been filled with eminent ability 
by Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs. 

The Board has been not less fortunate also in hav- 
ing, during its entire history, treasurers of eminent 
financial ability, who have received for their services 
much less than they could have commanded elsewhere. 
The financial standing of the Board has always been of 
the highest character, and the money intrusted to it 
has been used with greatest care and economy. 

The Woman's Board of Missions, through whose 
treasury goes a large and increasing proportion of the 
contributions to the Board, was organized in Boston 
in 1868, the Woman's Board of the Interior, with head- 
quarters at Chicago, in 1869, and the Woman's Board 
of the Pacific in 1873. 

The American Education Society. 

From the beginning of the settlement of New Eng- 
land Congregationalists have been deeply interested in 
raising up and maintaining an educated ministry. For 
that purpose Harvard College was founded. Yale Col- 
lege was begun by ministers and for ministers. But 
when Harvard was lost to the evangelical faith and 
other professions attracted an increasing proportion of 
the students of Yale, devout men and women mourned 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 343 

the dearth of ministers. A meeting was held in Boston 
in 18 1 5, and initial steps were taken to organize a society 
to encourage and aid young men of ability and Chris- 
tian character to fit themselves to preach the gospel. 
At an adjourned meeting that year Dr. Eliphalet Pear- 
son preached, affirming that in the nine Western States 
and Territories, with a population of 1,758,815, there 
were only 116 ministers, and that the need of spiritual 
leaders was also great in the South and even in New 
England. 

At that meeting '* The American Society for Educat- 
ing Pious Youths for the Gospel Ministry" was organ- 
ized, and it was legally incorporated the following year. 
Great interest was aroused in its object. Auxiliary 
organizations were formed in many places. Generous 
gifts were offered. Within the first year $4000 were 
contributed and forty young men were aided in their 
preparatory studies for the ministry. In the earlier 
years Presbyterians gave to the society with Congrega- 
tionalists, but during the most of its history it has been 
distinctively Congregational. Since its organization it 
has aided about eight thousand young men to enter 
the ministry, and has expended for this purpose about 
$2,500,000. 

But the newly settled and growing West needed not 
only ministers, but institutions to train them. The 
young colleges that were springing up were moved to 
appeal to the older churches for help, and several of 
their representatives met in New York City in 1843 ^^ 
discuss the ways in which this need could be met. The 
result was the organization of " The Society for the Pro- 
motion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the 
West." During the thirty years of its independent 



344 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

existence the society distributed about $1,800,000 to 
thirty colleges and seminaries. In 1874 it was united 
with the older organization under the name of the 
American College and Education Society. 

In 1878 an appeal was made to this society to aid in 
planting academies, and especially to assist two — one 
just beginning at Salt Lake City, and another at Santa 
Fe, N. M. The society did not think it wise to 
assume the added responsibilities. In 1879 ^^^ Gen- 
eral Association of Illinois appointed a committee to 
urge the Home Missionary Society to plant Christian 
schools in Utah as a means of preaching the gospel 
there and of counteracting the intolerable evils of 
Mormonism. But that society, after discussions ex- 
tending over more than two years, decided that, owing 
to the limitations of its charter and the pressure of 
other matters, it was not able to take the new work. 
So deeply, however, was the importance of such an 
effort felt that the New West Education Commission 
was organized in 1880, with headquarters at Chicago, 
and with Rev. Dr. F. A. Noble as President and Rev. 
C. R. Bliss as General Secretary. Schools and acade- 
mies were soon established in Utah and New Mexico. 
Consecrated and able teachers, most of them women, 
took up the work. Some of them were brought from 
their fields from time to time to tell the churches what 
was being done, and what was needed to overthrow 
Mormonism and Jesuitism in the new territories of the 
West. They pleaded their cause so effectively, and 
were so heartily supported by the officers of the soci- 
ety, that the contributions of $3000 in 1880 increased 
to $48,470 in 1885, and to $82,200 in 1893. The 
society then had property amounting to $150,000, six 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 345 

academies and fifteen schools, with an aggregate en- 
roUment of 2481 pupils. In that year, by advice of 
the National Council, the New West Commission and 
the American College and Education Society were 
consolidated under the title, The American Education 
Society. This organization, therefore, now includes 
in its aims ministerial education, colleges, academies 
and mission schools. It annually aids about 375 
young men in course of preparation for the ministry. 
It is giving assistance to 15 academies and 8 colleges, 
and to the mission schools transferred to its care by 
the New West Commission. 

The Congregational Home Missionary Society. 

The Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire 
and other missionary societies have been mentioned in 
previous chapters. They were organized responses to 
the call from feeble churches and from destitute fields 
for help to maintain religious institutions. As emigra- 
tion increased from the older States into the newer 
regions, the work of the.se and other similar societies 
enlarged. They usually commissioned missionaries to 
make tours of a few months over large sections of 
territory, preaching, calling on families, organizing 
churches and administering the sacraments. Some 
of these tours reached the Mississippi River and 
descended to New Orleans. These ministers were 
entirely supported by the societies sending them. 
The effects of their labor were largely temporary. 
Sometimes ministers employed by different societies 
came Into competition on the same fields. The system, 
or rather the lack of system, was too expensive, and at 
the same time It was scarcely effective. 



346 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

In 1822 the United Domestic Missionary Society of 
New York was formed by the union of two local 
organizations. In January, 1825, Nathaniel Bouton, 
afterward pastor of the First Church, Concord, N. H., 
riding from Andover to Newburyport in a stage-coach 
with several theological students, suggested the forma- 
tion of a National Domestic Missionary Society. The 
idea at once found favor. It was discussed by the 
students at Andover Seminary in their debating socie- 
ties and in the columns of religious papers and maga- 
zines. It was commended by a meeting of ministers 
assembled in Boston to ordain four Andover students 
for home missionary work. In January, 1826, a meet- 
ing of prominent New England ministers recom- 
mended that the United Domestic Missionary Society 
of New York should become the American Domestic 
Missionary Society. The executive committee of that 
body responded favorably and called a meeting of 
friends of home missions from all parts of the United 
States. One hundred and twenty-six persons, represent- 
ing thirteen States and four religious denominations, 
responded by assembling in the Brick Presbyterian 
Church of New York City, May 10. A constitution 
for the new organization was then proposed, and May 
12 it was adopted by the United Domestic Missionary 
Society, which thus became the American Home Mis- 
sionary Society. In its first list of officers the Congre- 
gational, Presbyterian, Reformed Dutch and Associated 
Reformed denominations were represented. From the 
beginning, however, Congregationalists were much the 
most prominent in gifts and in labors. The societies 
in the New Encrland States continued to take care of 
needy churches within their own boundaries, but trans- 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 347 

ferred to the national society their work for the 
regions beyond. They thus became auxiliary socie- 
ties, and from time to time their numbers have 
been increased as the missionary societies of the 
younger States have reached self-support. There are 
now thirteen of these auxiliaries, and in time it is to 
be expected that the churches in every State will care 
for their own missionary fields. 

The society employs State superintendents, general 
missionaries and pastors of churches or of groups of 
churches. It makes appropriations to aid churches in 
supporting their pastors, constantly encouraging them 
to self-support, leading fifty or more churches annually 
to financial independence. The first year after its 
formation the income of the society was $18,140, which 
has increased till in 1893 it amounted to $689,000. The 
first year there were 169 missionaries on its roll, who 
preached statedly to 196 congregations. In 1893 It 
employed or helped to support 2002 missionaries, who 
preached to 3841 congregations. In the first year 
more than two-thirds of its missionaries were In the 
State of New York. Now it has missionaries in every 
State in the Union except Delaware and in every Ter- 
ritory except Alaska. It has organized or aided more 
than 5000 churches, many of which are now among 
the strongest in the country. Its missionaries have 
planted schools and colleges throughout the land, have 
always been in the front with the march of emigration, 
have molded the characters of commonwealths and 
have left the Impress of their Influence on society for 
good in every part of our land. 

The Associated Reformed churches never took any 
prominent part in the work of the society. In 1832 



348 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the Dutch Reformed churches organized their own 
Board of Missions. In 1861 the Presbyterian General 
Assembly (New School) instituted its own committee 
on Home Missions. But the society, though for more 
than thirty years it had been the organ of Congrega- 
tionalists only, did not change its name till 1893, when it 
became the Congregational Home Missionary Society. 
This society has within the last ten years largely 
increased its work for the foreign population in our 
country, maintaining a superintendent of its German 
Department, another for the Scandinavian and another 
for the Slavonic. Women's home missionary organ- 
izations co-operating with it have been formed - in 
many of the States with growing interest and effi- 
ciency. The educational work of the society, though 
not extensive, is carried on by the maintenance of 
schools or academies in Georgia, Arkansas, the Indian 
Territory and Utah. 

The Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing 

Society. 

In the earliest years of the present century Sunday 
schools rapidly grew in importance as auxiliaries of 
Congregational churches. The Sunday-school move- 
ment as begun by Robert Raikes in Gloucester, Eng- 
land, in 1780, was confined to efforts to teach poor and 
neglected children. But in this country It Included all 
classes. The Massachusetts Sabbath-school Union, 
formed in Boston in 1825, began as an auxiliary to the 
American Sunday-school Union organized in Philadel- 
phia the previous year. In 1832 the organization came 
entirely under the control of Congregationalists, taking 
the name of the Massachusetts Sabbath-school Society. 
Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark, in Chapter XXII. of this volume. 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 349 

has fitly outlined the growth of this Sunday-school 
work, but a few facts of denominational history 
properly belong here. 

In 1834 Rev. Asa Bullard became the general agent 
of the society, and continued to be officially connected 
with it through all its changes of name and expansion 
in work till his death in 1888. For fifty-four years he 
was known among the Congregational churches of the 
land as the children's friend. For more than forty 
years he edited the Wellspring^ which is still one of 
the most popular of Sunday-school papers for children. 
Lesson helps and Sunday-school books were published 
and widely circulated. J uvenile missionary associations 
were formed in New England to help less favored 
children in the West and in Canada. In 1839 ^^ 
society became independent of the American Sunday- 
school Union, and in 1841 it was legally incorporated 
by the Massachusetts Legislature. Between 1853 and 
i860 eleven agents were employed as Sunday-school 
missionaries in Western States. During the Civil 
War this missionary work was largely suspended, and 
the society turned its attention to distributing its pub- 
lications to the soldiers in camp and hospital and to 
the Freedmen. 

An early demand for other publications than those 
for Sunday schools led to the formation in 1829 of the 
Doctrinal Tract and Book Society to promote Hop- 
kinsian theology. This society in 1854 became the 
Congregational Board of Publication. In 1868 this 
Board and the Sabbath-school Society were united 
under the name of the Congregational Sabbath-school 
and Publishing Society, which two years later became 
the Congregational Publishing Society. 



350 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

In 1874 the National Council, hoping to make the 
society a strictly business enterprise, recommended 
that its missionary Sunday-school work be transferred 
to the American Home Missionary Society. The 
advice was adopted, but the result proved disastrous to 
Sunday-school missionary interests. The receipts of 
the Publishing Society fell off largely, while the con- 
tributions to the Home Missionary Society for Sunday- 
school work were small, and interest among Congre- 
gationalists in this department of missions languished. 
The consequent dissatisfaction found expression in the 
action of several State associations and other bodies 
requesting the appointment of a general Sunday- 
school secretary. In 1880 the Publishing Society, to 
which these requests were addressed, elected A. E. 
Dunning, then a pastor in Boston, to that office, and 
he entered on its duties January i, 1881. In 1882, 
by agreement between the Home Missionary Society 
and the Publishing Society, the missionary Sunda}'- 
school work of the denomination was transferred to 
the latter organization. In 1883 the name of the 
Society was again changed to the Congregational 
Sunday-school and Publishing Society. The board 
of directors was increased to twenty-one, to which, 
later, five residing in Chicago were added, the majority 
of all being prominent business men. Sunday-school 
interests promptly advanced, both in the missionary 
and publication departments. State superintendents 
of Sunday-school work were appointed in the interior 
and western States. Missionaries of the society or- 
ganized Sunday schools in neglected districts. The 
energies of the churches were directed to greater and 
more sympathetic efforts in behalf of the young, and 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 35 I 

encouraging results followed. During the four years 
previous to 1882 the net gain of Congregational Sun- 
day schools throughout the land was 18,837. During 
the four years including and following 1882 the net 
gain was 67,504. 

The receipts of the society for missionary work for 
the year 1882 were $6257 ; for the year ending March 
I, 1893, nearly $80,000. 

The total assets of the business department in 1882 
were $35,125 ; in 1893 the assets were $128,560. The 
total sales of the business department in 1882 were 
$84,169. The total sales of both houses in 1893 were 
about $250,000. 

The American Missionary Association. 

This organization was formed in 1846, not originally 
for the purpose of giving the gospel to the colored 
people in the South, but " to conduct Christian mis- 
sionary and educational operations, and diffuse a knowl- 
edge of the Holy Scriptures in our own and other 
countries." In the opinion of those who were active 
in forming the association, other missionary societies 
did not at that time with sufficient earnestness dis- 
claim affiliations with the institution of human slavery. 
Therefore, they formed a missionary society which 
refused the contributions and co-operation of slave- 
holders. 

This society inherited the work of three organiza- 
tions all of which had sprung up within the preceding 
ten years. One of them, with three missionaries and a 
shipload of captured slaves whom our civil courts had 
declared free, had founded a mission in West Africa. 
Another was maintaining a mission among Freedmen 



352 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



in the Island of Jamaica. A third had been formed by 
the Western Reserve Association to carry on mission- 
ary work among Indians, and was supporting several 
missionaries among these people in Minnesota. 

In all these three movements Oberlin College was 
deeply interested, and furnished from its students most 




FETERS HALL, OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLIN, O. 

of the missionaries. Nearly forty of them at different 
times labored in Jamaica. Two of the three mission- 
aries to West Africa went from Oberlin, while more 
than twenty were missionaries to the Indians, sent out 
by the Western Evangelical Missionary Society. Ober- 
lin in those years regarded with distrust what its faculty 
and students considered as the too conservative attitude 
of the American Board on the subject of slavery. The 
church of the town did not contribute to the treasury 
of the Board nor did the students apply to It for mis- 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 353 

slonary appointments. It may be truly said that the 
American Missionary Association is the offspring of 
Oberhn College. Its honored senior secretary, Rev. 
Dr. M. E. Strieby, who has given his life to the asso- 
ciation and whose statesmanlike wisdom has shaped 
and guided its work, was a graduate of Oberlin. 

The association, then, in its earlier years, was both a 
foreign and a home missionary society. In 1854 it had 
79 missionaries in foreign lands and among the North 
American Indians. In i860 it employed 112 laborers 
in our own country, the majority of whom were in the 
interior States west of New York. At this time it 
supported 15 missionaries in the Southern States and 
in Kansas. These labored among white people. Some 
of them were beaten with stripes, and otherwise perse- 
cuted and driven out of the country. 

The Civil War, breaking out in 1861, opened to the 
association new and wonderful opportunities. Large 
numbers of slaves escaping along the lines of the 
advance of the Union armies and declared *' contra- 
band of war," were gathered at Fortress Monroe and 
Hampton, Va. Here in September, 1861, a Sunday 
school and a day school for Freedmen were begun, and 
during that year and the one following, schools were 
opened and religious work undertaken in various places 
by ministers and teachers supported by the association. 
The Proclamation of Emancipation, dated January i, 
1863, brought thousands of escaping slaves, utterly 
destitute and very ignorant, within the Union lines, 
and the appeal made in their behalf met with a gener- 
ous response from Northern philanthropy. Their 
pitiable need for food, clothing and education laid 
suddenly on the American Missionary Association an 



3S4 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



immense responsibility, but it promptly rose to the 
occasion. In 1864 it had 250 missionaries and teachers 
laboring in all the Southern States then accessible to 
Union men. In March, 1865, Congress created the 
Freedmen's Bureau, which expended for the emanci- 
pated slaves nearly $13,000,000. Its Chief Commis- 




JUBILEE HALL, FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN. 



sioner was Major-General O. O. Howard, now president 
of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, and 
in his noble official service he was ever ready to give 
his aid in extending the beneficent labors of the asso- 
ciation. 

The Congregational National Council, which met 
in Boston in 1865, recommended that the churches 
should at once raise $250,000 for the Freedmen, to be 
expended through the association. More than that 
amount was given. After the close of the war schools 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 355 

for the Freedmen multiplied, and higher institutions of 
learning were soon organized. A school at Berea, Ky., 
had been planted several years before the war by Rev. 
John G. Fee, a pioneer missionary of the association. 
He and his compa'ny had been driven out of the 
country, but as soon as the war was over they re- 
turned, and the school not long after expanded into 
a college. Hampton Institute, Virginia, though not 
under the care of the association, is not less a fruit 
of its plans. Its originator, and for more than a score 
of years its leader, was the noble ^General S. C. 
Armstrong, the son of a Congregational missionary of 
the American Board In the Hawaiian Islands, and a 
graduate of Williams College. During the Civil War 
General Armstrong was for two years and a half a 
commander of colored troops in the Union army. His 
later educational work for Negroes and Indians, till his 
death In 1893, has made his name illustrious among 
those who have opened new ways to bless and uplift 
mankind. To remarkable opportunities from child- 
hood of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the 
Negro race, he added a sublime faith in God, indom- 
itable energy, rare tact, good sense and organizing 
powers which laid the foundations of Hampton broad 
and deep, interested multitudes North and South in Its 
system of education, and Is sending out many trained 
and consecrated men and women to be teachers and 
leaders of their people. The Fisk school was opened 
at Nashville, Tenn., in 1865, with an attendance the 
first year of over twelve hundred pupils. It was incor- 
porated as a university In 1867. The Colored Jubilee 
Singers have made it famous in Europe as well as in 
the United States. In their singing tours they secured 



356 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



abroad over $150,000 for the institution. Howard 
University was founded in 1867 at Washington, D. C. 
Atlanta (Ga.) and Straight (New Orleans, La.) Uni- 
versities and Talladega (Ala.) College were chartered 




GENERAL S. C. ARMSTRONG. 



in 1869, Tougaloo (Miss.) University in 1871, and 
Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute (Austin, 
Tex.) in 1876. 

Howard, Fisk and Straight Universities and Talla- 
dega College maintain theological departments, and in 
all the schools special attention is given to Bible study 
and Christian training. Normal, graded, industrial 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 357 

and many primary schools are maintained by the asso- 
ciation throughout the Southern States, and thousands 
of teachers trained in these schools are doing efficient 
service among the people of their own race. The gift 
and bequest of Daniel Hand, amounting to nearly 
$1,500,000, has created an Important source of income 
to be expended by the association in educating the 
colored race. 

Church planting among the Freedmen has been 
slower than school planting because of the high moral 
and spiritual standard adopted by the association ; yet 
since the first church which it organized among them, 
in 1867 — the Plymouth, of Charleston, S. C. — the 
number had Increased to one hundred and twenty- 
eight in 1890, with eight State organizations. 

The association maintains an interesting work, with 
schools, academies and churches, among the mountain 
whites of Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. 
Since 1876 it has sustained missionaries and teachers 
among the American Indians. In 1882 this branch of 
its work was enlarged by the transfer to Its care of the 
Indian missions of the American Board. Since 1870 
mission work has been carried on among the Chinese 
immigrants in California with encouraging success. 
Christian women have from the beginning been prom- 
inent in all departments of the association's work 
and earnest in raising funds for its support. In 1883 a 
Bureau of Woman's Work was formed, with which 
thirty-four woman's missionary organizations co- 
operate. The average annual receipts of the associ- 
ation from 1880 to 1890, not including the Hand fund, 
were over $450,000. 



358 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

The Congregational Church Building Society. 

One of the topics of greatest interest at the Albany 
Convention of Congregational churches in 1852 was 
the building of meeting-houses for young churches in 
the West. The convention recommended that $50,000 
be raised at once for that purpose, and the churches 
responded by giving $61,891. From this movement 
sprang the American Congregational Union, formed in 
New York City, May 11, 1853. In 1882 the society 
added to its benevolent work the raising of money to 
aid in building parsonages. 

From the date of its organization till January i, 1894, 
the society aided in building 2445 nieeting-houses and 
432 parsonages. The conditions on which aid is fur- 
nished require that the buildings shall be completed free 
from debt, shall be kept insured, and if they are diverted 
to other purposes than those for which aid was given, the 
society, which holds a first lien on the property, may 
recover its gift. The receipts for 1893 were $189,235. 

With a single exception none of these six societies 
in their beginnings, nor any of those which have been 
consolidated with them, assumed the denominational 
name. Some of them have received large sums of 
money in gifts and bequests from persons outside of 
the denomination. Three of the societies, however, 
now bear the name " Congregational." Control is in 
each case vested in the society itself, though in most 
cases some direct recognition of the churches is given 
by inviting them to nominate or to elect representa- 
tives in the membership. The American Board is a 
self-perpetuating body of 350 persons, but three-fourths 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN WORK. 359 

of the new members may be nominated by State asso- 
ciations and conferences. The other societies are 
composed of persons who have become life members 
by the payment of a specific sum, and of annual 
delegates chosen by contributing churches and by 
State organizations. 

In this connection may properly be mentioned the 
Ministerial Relief Fund. The National Council of 
1892 recommended that $100,000 should be raised as 
a permanent fund for the support of aged and needy 
ministers, and efforts are being made to that end. In 
several of the States, also, some provision is made for 
the care of ministers enfeebled by sickness or age who 
have labored for a specific length of time within their 
bounds, and for widows and orphans of ministers. 

Congregationallsts have also generously contributed 
to undenominational benevolent organizations, such as 
the Bible, Tract and Seamen's Friend societies and the 
American Sunday-school Union. Congregationallsts 
rank first among the denominations in the amount of 
their gifts per member to missions. In 1892 the gifts 
of Congregationallsts through their home and foreign 
societies were $4.27 per member; Presbyterians, North, 
$3.72; Episcopalians, $2.07; Baptists, North, $1.54; 
Presbyterians, South, $1.27 ; Methodists, North, 53c.; 
Methodists, South, 44c.; ■ Baptists, South, 36c.; Cum- 
berland Presbyterians, 30c.; Lutherans, 27c. 

This chapter would be incomplete without some 
mention of 

The American Congregational Association. 

The Importance of preserving the literature which 
contains the history of a religious denomination cannot 



360 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

be overestimated. But the necessity of any general 
movement for this purpose hardly seems to have 
occurred to the early Congregationalists in New 
England. The very valuable library of Thomas 
Prince, preserved in the Old South meeting-house, was 
sadly damaged by the British army during the Revolu- 
tionary War ; but what remained of it has been care- 
fully preserved, in the care of the Old South Church, 
and is now deposited in the Boston Public Library. 

Not till 185 1, however, was any organization formed 
to establish a Congregational library. From that be- 
ginning sprang into being, in 1853, the Congrega- 
tional Library Association, with headquarters in a 
rented room in Tremont Temple, Boston. Its object 
was declared in its constitution to be '*to found and 
perpetuate a library of books, pamphlets and manu- 
scripts, and a collection of portraits and whatever else 
shall serve to illustrate Puritan history, and promote 
the general interests of Congregationalism." From 
that time till his death in 1861 Dr. Joseph S. Clark, 
in connection with other friends of the enterprise, de- 
voted much of his time to secure for it a building and 
a collection of books and other literature. The first 
estate purchased was on Chauncey Street in 1857. In 
1862 Dr. I. P. Langworthy took up the task, and with 
the active co-operation of Dr. H. M. Dexter, Dr. A. 
H. Quint and others, against great obstacles, the work 
went on, till in 1873 the present Congregational House 
at the corner of Beacon and Somerset streets was 
secured and occupied. In it are to be found the offices 
of the denominational benevolent societies centering in 
Boston, the Publishing Society's bookstore, the edi- 
torial and business rooms of The Congregationalists 




o 

X 

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2 

O 

< 

» 

O 
Z 
O 
O 



361 



362 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and the very valuable Congregational Library, named 
for Samuel A. Hitchcock, who gave $25,000 for the 
building. Already the building Is found Inadequate to 
the needs of these organizations, and plans have been 
submitted for a new and much laro^er structure on the 
site of the present one. When sufficient funds shall 
have been secured, It Is confidently anticipated that 
the glory of the latter house will far surpass the glory 
of the former. 




ELEAZER WHEELOCK, D. D. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



EDUCATION. 



"II7HEREVER, in any land, groups of Congrega- 
VV tional churches have arisen, institutions of learn- 
ing have been planted among them. The Puritans 
believed in the necessity of an educated ministry, and 
of an intelligent laity who could give a reason for the 
faith that was in them. Therefore the Congrega- 
tionalists of New England originated free common 
schools which have spread through the land. 

But our fathers were not satisfied with primary 
education for their children. Six years after they 
settled Boston they founded Harvard College, which 
bears the name of a Congregational minister who 
began its endowment. They intended it to be, first of 
all, an institution for training ministers of the gospel, 
and for that reason especially the prayers and interest 
of the churches centered around it as the chief foun- 
tain of learning in this country. They gave it for 
its motto, '' Christo et Ecclesiae." From its earliest 
years its standard of scholarship was high, and many of 
its alumni were intellectually as well equipped as the 
graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, England, where 
so many of the earliest settlers of New England had 
gained academic degrees. In 1647 the Massachusetts 
General Court enacted a law that every town with 
fifty families should provide a school where children 

363 



364 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

should be taught to read and write ; and that every 
town with one hundred families should provide a 
grammar school with a master able to fit young men 
for college. Thus early were the foundations of our 
educational system laid with its three grades of schools. 

But Harvard was the only college in America for 
the whole of the seventeenth century, except the 
Episcopal College of William and Mary, founded in 
Virginia in 1693. When it was felt that the time had 
come for a second college in New England, a com- 
pany of Connecticut Congregational ministers in 1700 
took the initiative, gave to it the first donations and 
decided what should be its character and aims. The 
original corporation consisted of ten Congregational 
ministers, who had power to fill their own vacancies. 
From that day to this the majority of the governing 
body of what is now Yale University have been 
Congregational ministers. All its presidents from 
Abraham Pierson to Timothy Dwight have been Con- 
gregational ministers. Its eight students in 1702 have 
increased to two thousand two hundred and two 
in 1894. It has trained young men (and since 1892 
women also) of every religious denomination, and its 
thousands of alumni are to be found in all lands, in all 
departments of professional and business life and of 
o^overnment. 

These two colleges satisfied New England for nearly 
seventy years after Yale was founded. In 1754 a 
Congregational minister, Eleazer Wheelock, opened 
in what is now the town of Columbia, Conn., a charity 
school for the instruction of Indian youth. Fifteen 
years later it was determined to remove this school to 
some healthful location in New Hampshire and to 



EDUCATION. 365 

enlarge it into a college. A charter was granted 
in 1769 by Governor John Wentworth in the name of 
King George III., naming it for the Earl of Dart- 
mouth, one of its benefactors, and recognizing Dr. 
Wheelock as its founder and first president, with the 
privilege of naming his successor. The college was 
opened in 1770 at Hanover, N. H. From the begin- 
ning a majority of its trustees have been Congrega- 
tionalists, and all its presidents except one have been 
Congregational ministers. Its roll of graduates 
includes Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate and many 
other names illustrious in American history. 

Williams Colleo^e bears the name of a man of 
Puritan descent, a heroic soldier of the old French 
war, with whom the college originated as an academy, 
at Williamstown, Mass. It was incorporated as a col- 
lege in 1793, and a Congregational minister. Dr. 
Ebenezer Fitch, the principal of the academy, Avas 
elected first president. His successor, Dr. Z. S. Moore, 
elected in 181 5, remained till 1821, when he became 
the first president of Amherst. Dr. Edward Dorr 
Griffin, the eloquent champion of orthodoxy as pro- 
fessor of Andover Seminary, and as the first pastor of 
Park Street Church, Boston, from 181 1 to 1815, was 
president of Williams from 1821 to 1836. Then came 
Dr. Mark Hopkins, whose fame is more than national 
as a teacher, preacher and philosopher. For more 
than half a century his was the most prominent name 
connected with the college. He resigned its presi- 
dency in 1872, but continued to be professor of moral 
philosophy and rhetoric till he died in 1887. Under 
his administration the students of Williams acquired a 
discipline of mind and a type of character which often 



366 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

distinguished them in business and professional life. 
President James A. Garfield was one of the most illus- 
trious of many who have attributed to Mark Hopkins 
the chief influence in forming their characters. Gar- 
field's saying has become famous : ''A log cabin in 
Ohio, with a wooden bench in it, and Mark Hopkins 
on one end of it and I on the other, would be college 
enough for me." Williams College was the birthplace 
of American foreign missions, and Dr. Hopkins linked 
its history with that of the American Board by serving 
as the president of that organization for thirty years. 

Rhode Island had Brown University, a Baptist col- 
lege, from 1765, and the University of Vermont was 
founded at Burlington in 1791. These, with the col- 
leges already named, sufficed for New England till the 
beginning of the present century. Middlebury College, 
Vermont, was opened in 1800. It is a Congregational 
college, and Congregational influences have also always 
predominated in the University of Vermont, though it 
has not been in any sense a denominational institution. 

The district of Maine had for many years desired a 
college. In 1788 its Congregational ministers and its 
justices of the peace petitioned the General Court of 
Massachusetts to incorporate a college in that district. 
After many vicissitudes a charter was granted in i 794. 
The college, named in honor of James Bo^doin, one of 
the governors of Massachusetts, was opened at Bruns- 
wick in 1802. The question of its denominational re- 
lations was at times discussed, but about the year 1842 
the majority of its overseers and trustees put forth a 
declaration that ''from its foundation it has been and 
still is of the Orthodox Congregational denomination." 
All its presidents have been Congregational ministers. 



EDUCATION. 367 

On its roll of graduates the names of Longfellow, 
Hawthorne, J. S. C. Abbott, Rufus Anderson, Calvin 
E. Stowe, Franklin Pierce, William Pitt Fessenden, 
John A. Andrew and Major-General O. O. Howard, 
besides many others known to fame, show the great 
service which Bowdoin has rendered to the country and 
the world. 

The circumstances attending the founding of Am- 
herst College are intimately connected with the history 
of the Unitarian departure. When Dr. Z. S. Moore 
was called from the professorship of languages at 
Dartmouth to be President of Williams, he accepted 
on condition that the college should be removed to 
another part of the State. Dr. Moore favored the 
removal of Williams to Amherst to be connected with 
the academy of that town. When this project failed, 
he accepted the presidency of the new college at 
Amherst. In its earlier history the college was 
greatly embarrassed for want of funds. In 1830 its 
debt was $30,000, and it carried this burden till 1846, 
when the debt was canceled under the able adminis- 
tration of President Hitchcock. During the two years 
following the college received, including a grant of 
$25,000 from the State, the sum of $108,000. At this 
time one of its most orenerous benefactors was Hon. 
Samuel Willisjton of Easthampton, whose gifts to the 
college finally amounted to $250,000. Mr. Williston 
was a type of a noble company of Congregationalist 
laymen who have done great service for Christian 
learning. He was the son of a Congregational min- 
ister, and was reared in poverty. He was prevented 
by poor eyesight from gaining a liberal education ; but 
he made a fortune by the manufacture of buttons, and 



368 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

besides large and wise benefactions during his life- 
time, bequeathed to educational institutions over one 
million dollars. 

Amherst was founded and has been maintained dur- 
ing its entire history with a distinctly religious aim. It 
has kept foremost its purpose to educate men to serve 
God. Frequent and powerful revivals of religion have 
resulted in the conversion of many young men. While 
it has sent out many prominent men into all profes- 
sions, it has a specially honorable list of ministers. 
Among its alumni are Daniel W. Poor, the pioneer 
missionary to Ceylon ; Professor B. ■ B. Edwards of 
Andover, Joseph S. Clarke, Henry Ward Beecher and 
Richard S. Storrs. 

Since the founding of Amherst New England Con- 
gregationalists have been content to enrich her colleges 
and universities for young men by munificent gifts 
instead of planting new ones. But from the beginning 
of the great movement of western emigration soon 
after the close of the Revolutionary War, Congrega- 
tionalists have been at the front, planting and foster- 
ing Christian colleges. Dr. Roy, in Chapter XXI., 
has admirably sketched the outline of that work. He 
has shown how in the path of New England mission- 
aries the Western Reserve, Illinois, Oberlin, Marietta, 
Knox and the whole noble succession of colleges have 
sprung up. Some further mention will be allowed 
here to portray the distinctive features of some of 
these colleges planted by Congregationalists. 

Illinois College looks back for its beginning to an 
evening in 1827, when seven students, gathered under 
the elms in New Haven, pledged themselves to give 
their lives to the work of education and of preaching 



EDUCATION. 369 

the gospel In what was then the far West, the State of 
IlHnois. These students were returning home after 
listening to an essay by one of their number, Theron 
Baldwin, on "The Call of the West." Two years later 
a school was opened at Jacksonville, with Julian M. 
Sturtevant as teacher, one of that famous Yale Band 
sent out by the American Home Missionary Society. 
In 1 83 1 Edward Beecher left the pastorate of Park 
Street Church, Boston, to become the first president 
of Illinois College. Its first class, graduated in 1835, 
consisted of two persons, one of whom, Richard Yates, 
became afterward the noted war governor of Illinois. 
Dr. Sturtevant was for fifty-six yeai*s connected with 
the institution as teacher, professor and president. Dr. 
Beecher still lives, till recently filling his ripe age with 
labors as a preacher In Brooklyn, N. Y. Illinois Col- 
lege has done more than any other institution to lay 
the foundations of education in that State. Its pro- 
fessors and graduates were pioneers In forming public 
sentiment in favor of a system of public schools. It 
has from the beginning maintained high standards, 
and followed worthily in the steps of Yale, Its parent 
institution. 

Oberlin was as distinctively founded by a Pilgrim 
colony as was Plymouth, Mass. One of the two 
pioneers who settled that town was a minister, John J. 
Shipherd, and the other had been a missionary of the 
American Board to the Choctaw Indians In Mississippi. 
These young men planned a Christian colony with 
a covenant to which its members subscribed, and the 
settlement began In April, 1833. Before the end of 
that year the first college building was Inclosed and the 
school opened. Forty-four students were enrolled the 



370 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



first term, of whom fifteen were women. Oberlin was 
the first college in the world to give to women equal 
advantages of education with men. In 1834 the first 
college class was organized, and the first Congregational 
Church of Oberlin was formed with sixty-two members. 
In 1835 Oberlin invited the attendance of colored stu- 




OBERLIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, OBERLIN, O. 



dents, the first educational institution in this country to 
attract wide attention by that step, though Dartmouth 
had years before admitted a colored student. In con- 
sequence, about thirty young men from Lane Theolog- 
ical Seminary, Cincinnati, having been forbidden by 
the trustees of that institution to discuss the subject of 
slavery, removed to Oberlin, and a theological depart- 
ment was opened. Charles G. Finney, pastor of what 
is now the Broadway Tabernacle Congregational 
church in New York city, was appointed professor of 
theology, Professor John Morgan, a graduate of Wil- 



EDUCATION. 371 

liams College, removed from Lane Seminary to Ober- 
lin, and Asa Mahan, pastor of a Presbyterian church 
in Cincinnati and a graduate of Andover Theological 
Seminary, was chosen president. One colored student 
came to the college that year. 

Oberlin soon became widely known as a place where 
peculiar and pronounced views were held concerning 
religion, theology, politics and social life. It was 
visited from time to time by persons who sought to 
impress their peculiar views on the college and the 
community. But while every such person of reputable 
character was hospitably received, he was expected to 
present his opinions in open debate. Often successive 
days were spent in such public discussions. The presi- 
dent and faculty were able men, and thoroughly exam- 
ined the arguments of their visitors. On some subjects 
members of the faculty themselves held views opposing 
one another, and frankly compared these views in open 
discussion. On other subjects, such as co-education, 
perfectionism and slavery, they were either against or 
in advance of the public sentiment of the time, so that 
the college and the colony met with much opposition 
from churches and people. 

But Oberlin was led by men of strong minds and 
consecrated purpose. She profited by experience both 
in correcting her mistakes and in strengthening her 
influence. She sent out educated and devoted men 
and women into all parts of the land, and especially 
into the newer West. Her graduates laid the founda- 
tions of other colleges, such as Olivet in Michigan and 
Tabor in Iowa. She took a prominent part in events 
which led to the Civil War and resulted in the aboli- 
tion of slavery. 



3/2 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Oberlln has perhaps laid aside some peculiarities 
which distinguished her earlier history. Other views 
and aims which she still holds have ceased to be pecu- 
liar. While the religious atmosphere of the college is 
not less marked than in former years, the institution 
has greatly enlarged its educational facilities, has 
broadened its curriculum and increased the number of 
its pupils till it is one of the foremost universities of 
the interior States. 

Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., like Illinois College, 
fondly looks back to a group of seven men seeking in 
a spirit of prayer the Christian education of the West. 
These seven were traveling together on a steamboat 
on Lake Erie in 1843, ^^^ ^^^ ^^ them was the same 
Theron Baldwin whose essay in 1827 had led to the 
forming of the Yale Band of Illinois. In that com- 
pany on the steamboat Beloit College was conceived 
in the mind of its chief founder, Stephen Peet. Two 
years later its first board of trustees was chosen, and 
in June, 1847, the corner stone of its first building was 
laid. Its first president. Rev. E. L. Chapin, a gradu- 
ate of Yale, was inaugurated in 1850, and served in 
that office for thirty-six years, till his successor, Presi- 
dent E. D. Eaton, was elected in 1886. It well 
deserves the title by which it is often called, the Yale 
of the West. 

Asa Turner was one of that Yale Band of Illinois 
in 1829. In 1843 w^ fi^d him at Denmark, la., and 
with him the Andover Band, who had gone that year 
into the new Territory. In the same consecrated 
spirit which had led to the beginning of Christian 
institutions in Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin, they laid 
the foundations of Iowa College, which was incor- 



EDUCATION. 373 

porated In 1847 ^^^ opened its first building in 1848. 
Ten years later It was removed to Grinnell, in the 
center of the State. That town was founded by a 
Christian colony, and bears the name of one of its 
founders, who chose the ministry as his profession but 
was compelled by ill health to surrender that purpose 
and move to the West, where he nobly spent a long 
life in Christian service. The first president of the 
college. Rev. Dr. George F. Magoun, still lives in the 
town. His successor, President George A. Gates, was 
inaugurated in 1887. 

Rev. John J. Shipherd, rejoicing in Oberlin colony 
and college as more than realizing his hopes, in 1843 
visited the southern part of Michigan, and there 
selected a site for a new colony, naming it Olivet. 
The next year he led a company of thirty-nine per- 
sons, a little group of families from Oberlin, to the 
spot he had chosen, and there they built homes and a 
school, which was to be, like Oberlin College, open to 
both sexes, and to colored as well as white students. 
Not till 1859 were ^^^ founders of ''Olivet Institute" 
able to secure from the State a charter as a college. 
Nor did the school meet with a more cordial recogni- 
tion among religious denominations than Oberlin had 
met. But the number of students attending it con- 
stantly increased, and after a few years they were 
more than could be properly accommodated. Great 
sacrifices were made by its friends to provide for its 
needs. The gifts it has received have come mainly 
from Congregatlonallsts, and its four presidents have 
been and are Congregational ministers : M. W. Fair- 
field, N. J. Morrison, H. Q. Butterfield and W. G. 
Sperry. The latter was Inaugurated in 1892. 




374 



EDUCATION. 375 

The history of Berea College, Berea, Ky., belongs 
with the history of the American Missionary Associa- 
tion, where mention of its founding is recorded. It is 
the only college in this country where colored and 
white students in considerable numbers may be found 
studying together. It is doing for both sexes a unique 
and very important work in a region where educational 
facilities are meager, and its future, under the lead of 
its recently inaugurated president, William G. Frost, 
is bright with promise. 

The first building in what is now the city of Ripon, 
Wis., was erected in 1849. ^^ 1^5^ ^^ ^ct for the 
incorporation of a college was passed. By the aid of 
the State Convention of Congregational and Presby- 
terian churches a school was maintained from 1853, 
and several Congregational ministers labored earnestly 
during the next ten years to advance its interests. 
But no collegfe work was done till the election of 
Rev. W. E. Merrlman in 1863. His admirable admin- 
istration soon placed the institution on a secure foun- 
dation and gave to it a distinctive character. Dr. 
Merriman resigned the presidency because of 111 
health In 1875. His successors have been Professor 
E. H. Merrell and Rev. Rufus C. Flagg, who was 
appointed in 1892. 

As early as 1857 the first steps were taken by the 
General Association of Congregational churches of 
Kansas to plant In that State a Christian college. But 
a year of drought and four years of civil war pre- 
vented the establishment of the college till 1865, when 
it was incorporated and the first building was erected 
at Topeka. It was first called Lincoln College, but 
in 1868 its name was changed to Washburn in recog- 



376 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

nitlon of a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars as an 
endowment fund from Deacon Ichabod Washburn of 
Worcester, Mass. For one year Rev. H. Q. Butter- 
field was president, but soon after his resignation in 
1870 Rev. Peter McVicar was elected and still remains 
in office. From time to time, in addition to funds 
raised in Kansas, generous sums have been given to 
the college by friends in Massachusetts and Connec- 
ticut, and several of its buildings bear names of Con- 
gregationalists honored in New England. 

In 1844 a colony started from Oberlin to found 
Olivet, Mich. In 1848 another colony from the same 
town went westward to plant Tabor, la. It was led 
by Deacon George A. Gaston, who, after six years in 
Oberlin, had labored from 1840 to 1845 ^^ a mission- 
ary of the American Board to the Pawnee Indians on 
the Missouri River. He then returned to Oberlin 
because of ill health ; but three years later he per- 
suaded several of his neighbors to return with him to 
the scene of his missionary labors and there plant a 
new Oberlin. In 1852 they consecrated a spot as 
''college grounds." In 1854 another party of thirty- 
eight from Oberlin joined the colony. Tabor Literary 
Institute was incorporated the same year. In 1857 
Rev. W^illiam M. Brooks was engaged as principal and 
the school was beo^un. 

Tabor carried the spirit of Oberlin into the border 
struggles which preceded the Civil War. John Brown's 
father was an early trustee of Oberlin. John Brown 
himself spent weeks and months in Tabor with his 
men preparing for the '* Kansas War." Tabor was a 
storehouse and a recruiting camp in those days of 
conflict. 



EDUCATION. 377 

Tabor College was not incorporated till the Civil 
War had ended. In 1866 the Council Bluffs Asso- 
ciation, which included about one-third of the Con- 
gregational churches in the State, recommended 
the placing of the institution on a college basis. 
The people of the town raised twenty-five thousand 
dollars for this purpose. Deacon Gaston gave 
four thousand dollars, nearly half his entire prop- 
erty. The first nineteen donors gave an average of 
sixty per cent, of the assessed value of all they 
owned. Few institutions of learning in the land have 
a record of as great self-sacrifice and as deep devotion 
as Tabor, and this spirit has characterized its gradu- 
ates. Two of the Yale Dakota Band sent out by 
the Home Missionary Society in 1881, with their 
wives, were from Tabor. President Brooks has been 
with the institution from the beginning. 

In 1866 the sixty Congregational churches of Min- 
nesota decided to plant a college at Northfield. The 
matter had then been two years under consideration. 
The next year the preparatory school was opened. 
October 14, 1870, the college department was organ- 
ized, the General Conference of churches being then 
in session at Northfield. James W. Strong, a pastor 
at Faribault, had just been elected president and at 
this meeting announced his acceptance of the office. 
Amid great enthusiasm and with earnest prayers, 
pledges of gifts were made which represented much 
self-sacrifice. More than sixteen thousand dollars were 
promised in the afternoon session of the conference 
that day. Some of this money came from poor home 
missionaries, some from young men and women just 
beginning life, and some was given in memory of one 



378 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

who had laid down his life for his country. A little later 
the same year, by a remarkable series of providences, 
William Carleton of Charlestown, Mass., became 
interested in the young college and gave to it fifty 
thousand dollars. Since that time it has borne his 
name. Steadily and rapidly the institute has expanded ; 
new buildings have been erected and new chairs 
endowed. In 1886 the sum of two hundred thousand 
dollars was added to the endowment fund, mostly by 
Minnesota givers. In 1891 the preparatory depart- 
ment was separated from the college and organ- 
ized as the academy. Dr. Strong continues in the 
presidency. 

Drury College, like other similar institutions already 
described, had its origin in the prayers and plans of 
the Congregational churches of Missouri. It was 
founded in 1873^ and every year since then has wit- 
nessed such giving and toil as has built out of prairie 
and wilderness free and great Christian commonwealths. 
It bears the name of Samuel J. Drury, a Congrega- 
tionalist layman of Olivet, Mich., and one of its 
generous patrons. Rev. N. J. Morrison was its first 
president, and his successor. Rev. Frank T. Ingalls, 
literally laid down his life for the college. Of the 
half million dollars it has received, more than one 
hundred thousand dollars have come from Pilgrim 
Church, St. Louis. But other churches have not been 
behind, according to their abilities, and eastern donors 
have dealt with it generously. 

The Conoreoational churches of Nebraska, while 
that State was yet in its infancy, decided in 1872 to 
plant a college. It was located at Crete in 1873, and 
bears the name of one of its most liberal donors, 



EDUCATION. 379 

Colonel Thomas Doane, a member of the same Win- 
throp Church, Charlestown, Mass., with William 
Carleton, who gave his name to the Congregational 
college of Minnesota. Its fine group of buildings is 
nobly located on a hill overlooking the valley of the 
Blue River. Its president, Rev. D. B. Perry, a grad- 
uate of Yale, has been from its beginning the master 
spirit in organizing and administering the college. 

Colorado Springs, seventy-five miles south of Den- 
ver, like so many other western college towns, was 
begun by a colony, and bears the characteristics of 
a city built for high moral purposes. It is a city of 
cultured homes in the midst of as magnificent scenery 
as can be found in America. There Colorado Col- 
lege was planted in 1874. It has had twenty years of 
remarkable growth. Under the wise administration of 
President Slocum its preparatory department has been 
separately organized as Cutler Academy, its standard 
of scholarship compares favorably with that of the 
oldest eastern colleges, and it worthily leads the edu- 
cational interests of the State. 

Yankton College began in 188 1, as its first president, 
Joseph Ward, said, a Dakota product. Dr. Ward 
gave to it the best years of his life and died in its 
service. It has already four fine buildings, and under 
the energetic administration of Rev, A. T. Free is 
rapidly increasing in numbers and is receiving gener- 
ous endowments. 

North Dakota Congregationalists have been for the 
last eight years, in the face of many obstacles, laying 
the foundations of a college at Fargo. Thus far it has 
endured the vicissitudes which its older brethren have 
known, and now, under the presidency of Rev. R. A. 



38o CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Beard, enters on an era of growing prosperity and 
usefulness. 

On the Pacific coast Congregationalists have carried 
the same spirit which brought forth Western Reserve 
and Oberlin colleges and their noble list of successors. 
When George H. Atkinson came to Oregon in 1848 
as the first missionary of the Home Missionary Society 
to that region, he found, at what is now Forest Grove, 
Harvey Clarke, a minister who had graduated at Ober- 
lin, and had gone to that western wilderness with his 
wife to be self-supporting laborers among the Indians. 
By the efforts of these two men Tualatin Academy was 
founded at Forest Grove. In 1854 it grew into Pacific 
University, anticipating in name what the vast re- 
sources of that magnificent country inspired its earlier 
settlers to hope for. Ten years later it had two small 
buildings. To these two others, much more preten- 
tious, have been added. It has an honorable roll of 
more than one hundred graduates from the college 
course, and property amounting to about two hundred 
thousand dollars. 

In 1866 Rev. Gushing Eells opened Whitman 
Seminary near the Columbia River in Washington 
Territory, at the mission station where Dr. Marcus 
Whitman, a missionary of the American Board, had 
been massacred in 1847. Soon after it was moved to 
Walla Walla, six miles distant. In 1882 the institution 
received a college charter, and Professor A. J. Ander- 
son was chosen president. He resigned in 1891, and 
his successor is Rev. J. F. Eaton. 

In northern California Congregationalists have 
planted no college, but in 1853 their efforts, united 
with those of Presbyterians, planted the school which 



EDUCATION. 381 

has resulted In the University of California. In south- 
ern California the Association of Congregational 
Churches in 1889 established Pomona College, now 
located at Claremont, with Rev. C. B. Sumner as its 
president. The present year it has enrolled one hun- 
dred and seventy-two students, and two handsome 
buildings are already erected. 

Within the last few years northern emigrants have 
found their way into the South in considerable num- 
bers. Florida, especially, is largely occupied by winter 
homes of families from New England, the Middle 
States and the West. Nearly sixty Congregational 
churches have been planted there since 1880. Under 
their fostering care Rollins College was established at 
Winter Park in 1885. It is attractively located, and 
among its students are represented both southern and 
northern families. The latest claimant for a place in 
the list of colleges specially cared for by Congregation- 
alists is Lake Charles, La. 

During the seventeenth century, especially the latter 
part of it, partly because of poverty and war, the 
higher grades of public schools were not to be found 
in many New England towns. Private and endowed 
academies sprang up in several places, some of which 
have become famous, and still continue. The oldest of 
these now existing is Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 
founded in 1778. Phillips Exeter (N. H.) Academy 
followed in 1781. Both these institutions were planted 
by two brothers whose father had been a Congrega- 
tional minister of the West Parish, Andover. Not less 
famous — of later date, 1841 — is the seminary for boys 
at Easthampton, Mass., which bears the name of its 
founder, Samuel Williston. Academies were numerous 



382 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

all over New England In the early part of this century. 
There were about fifty-five of them in Massachusetts, 
thiicy in Maine, twenty-five each in New Hampshire 
and Connecticut, and twenty in Vermont. Most of 
these were endowed, with funds estimated as amount- 
ing in the aggregate to over seven hundred thousand 
dollars. In recent years attempts have been success- 
fully made by Congregationalists to repeat in the West 
this work of preparatory education. In Nebraska, Min- 
nesota, Kansas, Washington and other western States 
there are several flourishing Congregational academies. 

The story of schools and colleges would be far from 
complete without some account of the efforts made by 
Congregationalists for the higher education of women.* 
Our New England fathers did not think it necessary to 
burden the public with the expense of educating girls. 
They thought the duties of that sex could be well 
performed without mental training. Girls were not 
allowed to attend the public schools in Boston till 1790. 
Until 1822 the law permitted their attendance only in 
the summer months. Similar restrictions may be found 
in the records of other New England towns. But sev- 
eral of the academies admitted girls. Most famous 
among these is the one at Bradford, Mass., founded In 
1803. This institution opened a new era in the educa- 
tion of women. In 1828 a separate department for 
girls was established, and in 1836 the boys' department 
was closed. Miss Ann C. Hasseltine was connected 
with this school for half a century, first as associate 
and later as principal. Among its earlier pupils were 
Harriet Atwood Newell and Ann Hasseltine Judson, 
wives of the first missionaries of the American Board. 

The increasing calls for women as teachers occa- 




MARY LYON. 



EDUCATION. 383 

sioned a growing Interest In the education of girls. 
The first Institution In New England for that sex only 
was founded with a bequest of Jacob Adams at Derry, 
N. H., In 1823. Ipswich (Mass.) Academy was opened 
in 1828, Abbott Academy, Andover, was Incorporated 
In 1829, and Wheaton Academy, Norton, In 1834. 

In all these movements for the education of women 
the most Interesting and Illustrious person Is Mary 
Lyon. Born and reared in poverty at Buckland, Mass., 
she early became a teacher In country schools, receiv- 
ing at first as her wages seventy-five cents a week 
and ''boarding round" In the families of her pupils. 
She first went to an academy as a student In 181 7, at 
the age of twenty. Later, at Ipswich Academy, she 
became acquainted with Miss Grant, and these two 
women were for four years together as teachers at 
Adams Academy, Derry, N. H. Leaving there because 
the trustees objected to the prominence they gave to 
religious instruction, they returned to labor In Ipswich. 
But Mary Lyon had already conceived a plan of found- 
ing a seminary for girls to be carried on by methods 
peculiarly her own. In 1834 she left Ipswich to devote 
herself to this purpose. When In that same year 
Judge Laban Wheaton opened at Norton, Mass., a 
seminary for girls as a memorial of his daughter, 
Mary Lyon was present with her counsels, selected the 
first principal and spent some time with the school. 

But her heart was set on another enterprise. She 
interested Individuals and churches In It, gathered 
money from many sources with varied discouragements 
but undaunted persistence, and In 1837 Mount Holyoke 
Seminary was opened at South Hadley, Mass. Miss 
Lyon's plan contemplated sufficient manual labor on the 



384 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



part of the pupils to bring the expense down to a low- 
figure, and to give the opportunity for education to girls 
in the position she herself had occupied, who hungered 
for knowledge as she did. The price of board and tui- 
tion for a term of ten weeks was put at sixteen dollars. 
The story of Miss Lyon's life and work is fas- 




MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, SOUTH HADLEY, MASS. 



cinating. She drew to her support a trio of Congre- 
gational deacons — Avery, Porter and Safford — whose 
labor for the seminary of Itself entitles them to lasting 
renown. Others, like Samuel Williston and Henr)^ F. 
Durant, gave generously of their time and money. 
Miss Lyon had years of anxiety, prayer, fear and hope 
before she died in 1849. But one cannot read the 
story of her life without the conviction that few women 
ever enjoyed living as much as she did. With won- 
derful rapidity Mount Holyoke grew to be a. fountain 
of world-wide beneficence. Its pupils went to be labor- 



EDUCATION. 385 

ers in every good field. More than fifty women whom 
she had trained became foreign missionaries. Semi- 
naries after the pattern of Mount Holyoke and taught 
by its graduates sprang up, not only in America, but in 
every continent. Lake Erie Seminary, Painesville, O., 
founded in 1847, received its plans and many of its 
teachers, including two nieces of Miss Lyon, from 
Mount Holyoke. Mills Seminary and College, Cali- 
fornia, was established by Dr. and Mrs. Mills ** to do 
for the far West what Mount Holyoke Seminary does 
for the East." Fidelia Fiske's Seminary for the Nes- 
torian girls of Persia, the Mount Holyoke Seminary at 
Bitlis, Turkey, for the Koordish girls, the Huguenot 
Seminary at Wellington, South Africa, all officered by 
Mount Holyoke graduates, are only conspicuous illus- 
trations among many of the blessed life and service 
of Mary Lyon. Mount Holyoke Seminary secured 
its charter as a college in 1888, but with the same 
spirit and aims as in earlier days it continues its 
prosperous career with Mrs. Elizabeth M. Mead as its 
president. 

In that Connecticut valley lived Miss Sophia Smith, 
who gave a generous sum to found Smith College for 
girls at Northampton in 1875. I" ^^^ equipment, fac- 
ulty and students it is already in the foremost rank. 
Henry F. Durant studied the system of education 
at Mount Holyoke, served as one of its trustees, and 
moved by the knowledge of its vast usefulness, with 
his wife, who survives him, founded Wellesle}' College 
in 1875, giving for this purpose six hundred thou- 
sand dollars, to which other large gifts have been 
added, till its stately buildings, its home-like cottages 
and its ample grounds combine to make it unsur- 



386 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

passed in attractiveness by any American college. 
Its seven hundred and twenty-nine students come 
from thirty-seven States of the Union and from seven 
foreign countries. 

While the college is, and by the terms of its charter 
must be, undenominational, it is "distinctively and 
positively Christian in its influence, discipline and 
instruction." Its founders and its two presidents, 
Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer and Miss Helen M. 
Shafer, were Congregationalists. 

Several of the colleges here described bear no de- 
nominational name. They all open their doors equally 
wide to all worthy applicants. Some of them were 
founded by individuals, others by the action of 
associations or conferences of churches. They are 
given a place in this history because they have 
been founded by Congregationalists, and because 
through their history or government, or both, they 
are most closely affiliated with the Congregational 
denomination. _ 

These colleges represent various degrees of maturity 
in their equipments and attainments. But they all 
maintain high standards of scholarship, and as centers 
of Christian culture and influence are unsurpassed by 
any institutions of learning In America. Most of these 
colleges, especially in the West, have preparatory 
departments much larger than the collegiate ; but as 
their numbers have increased, the most of them have 
made the college department distinct and complete 
in itself. In many of them normal training, music 
and art have received special attention, while not 
a few have provided for post-graduate courses of 
study. 



EDUCATION. 387 

To these schools of Cliristian learning other 
institutions might be added, unique in character 
and without denominational affiliations, but founded 
by Congregationalists and to a large extent sus- 
tained by them. Prominent among these in Mas- 
sachusetts are Mr. Moody's Mount Hermon schools, 
one for boys and the other for girls, the School 
for Christian Workers and the French Protestant 
College at Springfield, and the Lay College at 
Revere. 

Congregationalists have founded seven schools for 
the professional training of ministers. Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary is the oldest, opened in 1708. Its 
list of professors includes such eminent names as 
Moses Stuart, Leonard Woods, W. G. T. Shedd, 
E. P. Barrows, Calvin E. Stowe, Edwards A. Park, 
Austin Phelps and Egbert C. Smyth. 

Bangor Seminary was opened at Hampden in 18 16, 
and a few years later removed to Bangor, Me., about 
six miles distant. A large proportion of its students 
have not been college graduates, but have received in 
this institution a training which has enabled them to 
be useful ministers, and some of them have attained 
high eminence. Among its teachers Professors Enoch 
Pond and Lewis F. Stearns have made important per- 
manent contributions to theological literature. Dr. 
Pond was connected with the institution as professor 
or president for forty-five years. 

In 1822 Yale College, which had always made in- 
struction in theology prominent, opened a distinctive 
department for this purpose, with Dr. Nathaniel W. 
Taylor at its head, which soon grew to large propor- 
tions and is now one of the best equipped theological 



388 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

schools in the world. Few writers have made more 
valuable contributions to American religious literature 
than its teachers, among whom are Theodore D. 
Woolsey, Leonard Bacon, Noah Porter, Timothy 
Dwight, Chauncey A. Goodrich, George E. Day, 
Samuel Harris and George P. Fisher. 

Soon after the theological department of Yale was 
opened a doctrinal controversy arose, in which Dr. 
Taylor was opposed by Dr. Bennett Tyler. The con- 
troversy was carried on with great interest to theolo- 
gians for several years, though the points of difference 
have ceased to be of any practical importance. But it 
resulted in the founding in 1833, by the Pastoral Union 
of Connecticut, of the East Windsor Theological 
Institute, with Dr. Tyler at its head. This union was 
a body of about one hundred Congregational ministers, 
associated on the basis of a creed embodying the theo- 
logical views of Edwards, Bellamy and other standard 
New England writers. The membership of the union 
has since increased to about two hundred. This insti- 
tution, removed to the capital of the state, has become 
Hartford Theological Seminary. It has excellent 
buildings, a very valuable library, an admirable body 
of teachers and a large attendance of students. Its 
president, Chester D. Hartranft, by its organization 
and broad plans of education for ministers, has given to 
it a distinctive character among theological seminaries. 
It has recently admitted women Into its classes. In 
1894 it enrolled fifty-four students, ten of whom were 
women. 

Oberlin, as elsewhere stated, opened a theological 
department in 1835. This has become a distinct 
school, having its own professors, and a large number 



EDUCATION. 389 

of graduates are doing valiant service in the pulpits of 
America and other lands. 

Chicago Theological Seminary, the youngest of 
the seven, except one, has surpassed all the others 
in its departments, attendance and endowments. It 
was organized by delegates from Congregational 
churches in six interior States, w^as incorporated in 
1855 and opened in 1858. Its directors are chosen 
by the representatives of Congregational churches 
of the interior States. It has devoted much atten- 
tion to the training of ministers for work among 
foreign nationalities in this country. Its German 
department was opened in 1882, the Dano-Norwegian 
in 1 884 and the Swedish in 1885. Its total attendance 
of students in 1894, is two hundred and two, represent- 
ing twenty-three States of the Union and thirteen 
foreign countries. One hundred and twenty-eight of 
them have pursued academic studies in sixty-six 
collegiate institutions. The seminary has graduated 
five hundred and seventy-seven young men, and 
has given instruction to more than twelve hundred. 
Dr. Franklin W. Fisk, still the honored president, 
and Dr. George Dana Boardman, now emeritus pro- 
fessor of systematic theology, have been with it 
from the beginning, thirty-five years, while Profess- 
ors Curtiss, Scott, Wilcox, Taylor and others are 
doing noble service. 

By heroic efforts on the part of the faculty, directors 
and other friends of the institution, a fund of five hun- 
dred and eighty thousand dollars has just been raised, 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of which was 
the oift of Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicaoro. The 
seminary, now fully equipped, with property amounting 



390 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

to more than a million and a half of dollars, with 
abundant opportunities for listening to eloquent 
preachers, as well as for every kind of missionary 
work, offers exceptional attractions to students in prep- 
aration for the ministry. 

In 1869 the General Association of California 
founded Pacific Theological Seminary at Oakland, and 
appointed Rev. Joseph A. Benton as its first professor. 
The next year Rev. George Mooar was associated 
with him. In 1881 gifts amounting to one hundred 
thousand dollars placed the institution on a hopeful 
footing, and three new professors have been recently 
added to the faculty. 

From the institutions thus briefly described — acad- 
emies, colleges, universities and theological seminaries — 
go forth every year an army of young men and women 
whose influence is inestimable. The large majority 
of them are professing Christians. They have spent 
years of study In an atmosphere of Christian culture, 
where the prevailing motives are to serve mankind 
for Christ's sake. They become educators in every 
land and among all classes of people. They take 
positions In the front ranks of professional, business 
and political life. Who can calculate the results of 
the gifts and labors of consecrated men and women 
in founding and maintaining and keeping alive the 
interest of the churches in these institutions of 
learning ? 

The following table represents the list of institutions 
which have originated with Congregationalists, and In 
which that denomination is now especially interested, 
though many of them are not in any sense under 
denominational control : 



EDUCATION. 



391 



LIST OF COLLEGES. 



Yale, 

Dartmouth, 

Williams, . 

Bowdoin, 

Middlebury, 

Amherst, 

Oberlin, 

Marietta, 

Illinois, 

Beloit, . 

Iowa, 

Pacific, 

Ripon, 

Olivet, . 

Wheaton, 

Berea, . 

Washburn, 

Tabor, . 

Carleton, 

Fisk, 

Howard, 

Talladega, 

Straight, 

Atlanta, 

Tougaloo, 

Doaue, . 

Drury, 

Colorado, 

Smith, 

Wellesley, 

Yankton, 

Gates, . 

Whitman, 

Rollins, 

Fargo, 

Redfield, 

Mount Holyoke, 

Pomona, 

Lake Charles, . 



New Haven, Conn., 
Hanover, N. H., 
Williamstown, Mass. 
Brunswick, Me., 
Middlebury, Vt., 
Amherst, Mass., 
Oberlin, O., 
Marietta, O., . 
Jacksonville, 111., 
Beloit, Wis., . 
Grinnell, la., 
Forest Grove, Ore., 
Ripon, Wis., 
Olivet, Mich., 
Wheaton, 111., . 
Berea, Ky., 
Topeka, Kan., . 
Tabor, la., 
Northfield, Minn., 
Nashville, Tenn., 
Washington, D. C, 
Talladega, Ga., 
New Orleans, La., 
Atlanta, Ga., . 
Tougaloo, Miss., 
Crete, Neb., . 
Springfield, Mo., 
Colorado Springs, Colo., 
Northampton, Mass., 
Wellesley, Mass., . 
Yankton, S. D., 
Neligh, Neb.. 
Walla Walla, Wash., 
Winter Park, Fla , 
Fargo, N. D., . 
Redfield, S. D., . 
South Hadley, Mass. 
Pomona, Cal., 
Lake Charles, La., 



DATES OF 
CHARTER. 



701 
769 

793 

794 
800 
825 

^33 

834 

835 
846 

847 
854 
855 
859 
861 
865 
865 
866 
866 
867 
867 
867 
869 
869 
869 
872 

873 

874 

875 

875 
881 

881 

883 
885 
887 
888 



889 
890 



392 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 



NAME. 


LOCATION. 


DATES OF 
CHARTER. 


Andover, .... 


Andover, Mass., 


1808 


Bangor, 


Bangor, Me., 


I816 


Yale, .... 


New Haven, Conn., . 


1822 


Hartford, 


Hartford, Conn., . 


1833 


Oberlin, .... 


Oberlin, 0., . . . 


1835 


Chicago, 


Chicago, 111., 


1854 


Pacific, .... 


Oakland, Cal., . 


1869 




MARK HOPKINS, D. D., LL. D. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE NEW ERA. 

THE last half century is a distinct period in the 
history of Congregationalism. During that time 
it has awakened to a new self-consciousness, has come 
into formal unity, has become national and has under- 
taken world-wide aims. In Christian education and in 
missionary enterprise it was first in the field in this 
country. During the last fifty years it has come to 
recognize the duty of maintaining independently of 
other denominations its missionary efforts in all lands ; 
and it has justified the title which has been given to it, 
"the denomination which educates." 

The evidence that Congregationalists are doing 
these things worthily has been given in the two pre- 
vious chapters. They were the first to enter on the 
work of educating the freedmen after the Civil War. 
From that time to the present they have expended in 
the South more for this purpose than all the other 
denominations together. Congregationalists were the 
first to introduce Christian education into Utah, making 
it the most potent instrument in destroying the power 
of Mormonlsm. They have been pioneers in carrying 
the gospel into heathen nations, where they maintain 
14 theological schools, 66 colleges and high schools 
for boys, 56 similar institutions for girls and nearly 
1000 common schools. In missionary work and in 

393 



394 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

education Congregatlonallsts have made a record 
second to none at home and abroad. 

Evidences of the new awakening of the denomina- 
tion abound, especially in the literature of the years 
immediately before and following 1850. Many ad- 
dresses of that period before State meetings and other 
annual gatherings on the character and working of the 
Congregational polity were printed and widely distrib- 
uted. The pastoral letter of the General Association 
of New York In 1853 says : *' Until a recent date our 
existence beyond the bounds of New England was 
not always readily acknowledged;" "but it Is so no 
longer;" ''for the last eight or ten years this apathy 
has been gradually disappearing." In 1854 Dr. Tru- 
man M. Post of St. Louis delivered the address at 
the annual meeting of the American Congregational 
Union In Brooklyn, on the topic ''The Mission of 
Congregationalism in the West." The next year the 
subject of the address of Dr. Julian M. Sturtevant of 
Illinois before the same body was ''Congregationalism 
Anti-Sectarian." The denomination was thus being 
roused to consider with new hope Its mission and its 
opportunities, and this fact furnished the prevailing 
themes of its representative assemblies. 

During the first twenty years of the last half cen- 
tury, from 1845 ^^ iS^S' certain subjects of vital and 
general interest commanded the attention of the 
churches, the discussion of which had important results 
in unifying the denomination and enlarging Its influ- 
ence. These subjects concerned the doctrine of the 
churches, their attitude toward the national govern- 
ment, especially on the question of slavery, and their 
polity. 



THE NEW ERA. 395 

In the earlier part of this period doctrinal matters 
attracted the greatest attention in New England, which 
still contained nearly four-fifths of the Congregational 
churches in the United States. Massachusetts Con- 
gregationalists had, after more than a generation of 
wearisome conflict, freed themselves from the incubus 
of Unitarianism. Naturally many of them looked 
with apprehension on tendencies in theological teach- 
ing which seemed to call in question doctrines they 
were defending as essential to their faith. Two men 
of remarkable ability and of very different types of 
mind were then coming into prominence in the denom- 
ination as leaders of religious thought, who awakened 
decided opposition. Edwards A. Park, then recently 
appointed, not without strong remonstrance, to the 
ehair of systematic theology at Andover, was reformu- 
latino- Calvinistic doctrines with an exactness of defini- 

o 

tion, a power of logic and a freshness of thought and 
style which drew large classes of students to the semi- 
nary, and which fearlessly challenged those who dis- 
puted those doctrines or objected to new statements of 
them. Horace Bushnell, from the pulpit of the First 
Church, Hartford, Conn., was winning the loyal sup- 
port of his people, no less by the charm of his personal, 
presence than by his eloquence and poetic genius. 
The great crisis in his spiritual history, In 1848, 
brought forth views then novel, which he gave to the 
public in the book '* God in Christ," and which precip- 
itated a long and sharp controversy. Some acquaint- 
ance with the author's temperament, character and 
history was, perhaps, necessary at the time in order 
fully to comprehend his meaning and purpose. His 
thought rose above definitions and expressed itself in 



39^ 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



sublime conceptions of Christ formed in the soul, a 
new creating power of God for and in humanity. But 
he was at once attacked by many of his ministerial 
brethren, through public addresses and the religious 
press, as a dangerous heretic in his views of the Trinity 

and the atonement. 
His own ministerial 
association, the Hart- 
ford Central, essayed 
to bring him before 
the consociation for 
trial, but after full dis- 
cussion decided that 
his errors were not 
fundamental. The 
Connecticut General 
Association made his 
alleged heresies the 
chief subject of de- 
bate for four succes- 
sive years. Nearly 
all the ministers of 
Hartford and vicinity 
during this period refused to permit him to enter their 
pulpits. His own church unanimously stood with him, 
and withdrew on his account from the consociation. 
Dr. Bushnell was not a framer of a theological system, 
but he was a wonderful inspirer of religious thought 
and experience. His sympathies embraced with en- 
thusiasm every department of life. He was not only 
the most distinguished preacher but also the foremost 
citizen of Hartford. In his later life, as his writings 
plainly show, he did not hesitate to set aside what he 




HORACE BUSHNELL, D. D,, LL. D. 



THE NEW ERA. 397 

had held that was inconsistent with the deeper knowl- 
edge he had attained, and he came into greater har- 
mony with many of those from whom he had differed. 
He lived to see the distrust and opposition which he 
had long endured fade away, and give place to a loyal 
devotion which, with those who knew him, mingled 
affection with reverence. 

It might have been natural to expect that these 
theological disturbances would tend to divide rather 
than unify the denomination. But already by the 
Unitarian departure the limits of fellowship had been 
recognized and accepted. Tliese latter experiences 
helped to determine the churches that within those 
limits liberty would be allowed. The outcome of 
those years of conflict was beneficent: it was settled 
from that time that theological investigation in a 
devout spirit would be encouraged, that fresh state- 
ments of truth would be welcomed by Conereeational 
churches, and that no fixed creed of the fathers could 
be irrevocably binding on coming generations. 

Congregationalists were substantially united in their 
sentiments of opposition to slavery in the early part 
of the century ; but as the subject came to be more 
generally discussed, the denomination took a foremost 
position in denouncing it, with tremendous effect in 
bringing about its final overthrow. The part taken in 
this contest by Oberlin College and its graduates has 
already been described. Oberlin men and women were 
to be found in Michigan, in Iowa, In Kansas, in every 
western State, maintaining the same uncompromising 
attitude. But even more telling blows against the 
institution of slavery were being struck in the East. 
In 1845 Joseph P. Thompson went from the Chapel 



398 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



Street Church, New Haven, to the pastorate of the 
Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York ; a posi- 
tion which he filled with great ability for more than 
a quarter of a century. In 1846 the Church of the 
Pilgrims in Brooklyn, then twa years old, settled its 
young pastor, Richard Salter Storrs. In 1847 a new 
Congregational enterprise was begun in Brooklyn, 
which took the name of Plymouth Church, and called 




BEREA COLLEGE, BEREA, KY. (page 2>1S)' 

to be its first pastor Henry Ward Beecher, then thirty- 
four years of age, with an experience of seven years in 
the ministry in the West. Both these men were sons 
of ministers notable in New England Congregational 
history. Leonard Bacon, also the son of a pioneer 
Congregational minister, had already served a score 
of years as pastor of the First Church, New Haven, 
and was recognized as a leader in the denomination. 
These men were at the front of a steadily growing and 
advancing army of those who strove by voice and pen 
for freedom for the slave, for righteousness in govern- 
ment and for the supremacy of Congregational prin- 
ciples. The New York Indepeitdent, begun by them 
in 1848, was one of the channels through which they 



THE NEW ERA. 399 

spoke. Other periodicals gave voice to their utter- 
ances. From pulpit and platform they made them- 
selves heard and their beliefs respected. In 1846 Dr. 
Bacon published his volume '* Slavery Discussed," to 
v^hich Abraham Lincoln years afterward referred as 
having led him to clear convictions on that subject — 
convictions which prompted him to issue his Emanci- 
pation Proclamation in 1862. Plymouth Church, 
Brooklyn, soon gained national fame for its advocacy 
of freedom for the slave. When the conflict waxed 
hot as to whether Kansas should be made a free or 
a slave State, Plymouth Church undertook to supply 
every family emigrating thither in the interests of 
freedom with a Bible and a rifle. 

In June, 1851, Mrs. Harriet Bcecher Stowe's 
** Uncle Tom's Cabin" began to be published as a 
serial in xh^ National Era of Washington. That story 
stirred the people of the Northern States from Maine 
to California. It made the execution of the Fugitive 
Slave Law impossible. It did more than any other 
one thing to break the fetters of the slave. Lyman 
Beecher made upon all his children indelible impres- 
sions of hostility to slavery, and inspired them to 
defend all mankind who were oppressed. His 
daughter, Mrs. Stowe, referring to his preaching in 
her childhood, and his daily prayers in the family, says 
she could never forget their effect : "' Prayers offered 
with strong crying and tears, which indelibly impressed 
my heart and made me what I am from my very soul, 
the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have has 
been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man." 

As the struggle grew in intensity, Congregational 
churches became more and more united In their oppo- 



400 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

sition to slavery. Though they were denounced by 
some abolitionists who were eager to force immediate 
separation of the northern from the slave-holding 
States, they were inspired by their leaders both to loy- 
alty to the Union and to the principles of liberty which 
finally prevailed. Henry Ward Beecher did noble 
service for this country and the cause of freedom by 
addresses made in Great Britain in the autumn of 1863. 
Public sentiment there at that time leaned strongly 
toward the Confederacy. Mr. Beecher spoke on the 
issues of our Civil War to vast audiences in Manches- 
ter, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool and London, and 
though he was in each city met by intense opposition, 
he overcame it by his fearless good humor, his earnest 
convictions, his intense perseverance and his magnetic 
power as an orator, and contributed greatly to influence 
popular feeling in that country to sympathy with the 
Union cause. To the success of that cause Congrega- 
tional churches contributed their full share in men who 
served in the army, in the self-sacrifice of^ women, in 
money and in influence at home and abroad. 

During these same years which preceded the Civil 
War the polity of Congregatlonalists was also develop- 
ing in important directions. Interest in their history 
was revived. They w^ere called to adapt their polity to 
the new conditions of the rapidly expanding country. 
They were led to strengthen the bonds of fellowship with- 
out infringing on the freedom of the local church. In 
this important work Dr. Leonard Bacon did especially 
valuable service. He began to write for the Christian 
Spectator while a student at Andover in 1823. He 
was one of the editors of that magazine from 1826 to 
1838. He helped to establish the New Englander m 



THE NEW ERA. 4OI 

1843, and published in its columns more than one hun- 
dred essays. For fifty-seven years, from 1825 till his 
death, December 24, 1881, he was pastor of the First 
Church of New Haven. From 1866 to the end of his 
life he was connected with the Yale Divinity School as 
professor of didactic theology, and later as lecturer on 
ecclesiastical polity and American church history. He 
greatly helped Congregationalists to understand and 
appreciate the facts of their history and the exact prin- 
ciples of their polity. In all important denominational 
assemblies his presence was influential, and he came 
to be regarded as one of the very foremost Congre- 
gational leaders. 

Henry Martyn Dexter was the junior of Dr. Bacon 
by twenty years ; but in historical research, in enthusi- 
astic faith in the Congregational polity and in perma- 
nent contributions to its literature he followed closely 
in the footsteps of his senior and in the latter overtook 
and surpassed him. In contending against slavery also 
he took a notable part. He freely used voice and 
pen in the interests of freedom, and he prepared the 
famous remonstrance to the Nebraska Bill, to which he 
secured the signatures of several thousand ministers of 
all denominations In New England. Dr. Dexter was 
the pastor from 1849 ^^ 1867 of the Pine Street, after- 
ward the Berkeley Street, Church, Boston. From 1851 
till his death in 1891, with a single Interval of a year, he 
was the editor of the Congregationalist. Early In his 
public career he devoted himself to the study of the 
history and principles of Congregationalism, and to the 
practical application of these principles in the adminis- 
tration and spread of Congregational churches. Much 
of his great interest in this subject undoubtedly 



402 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

originated in the fact of his descent from, and his rev- 
erence for, the Pilgrim fathers. In process of time Dr. 
Joseph S. Clark, Dr. A. H. Quint and others became 
associated with him in editing the Congregational 
Quarterly, which later was succeeded by the Year Book, 
and other publications representing the principles, sta- 
tistics and growth of the denomination. Dr. Quint 
devised the plan and method of collecting statistics for 
the entire denomination, and had charge of this work 
for a quarter of a century. He devised the method of 
representation of the first National Council in 1865, and 
framed its constitution substantially as it now stands. 
He has had prominent influence in shaping many 
of the most important denominational documents of 
the last thirty-five years. He is therefore eminently 
fitted for the task he has undertaken, in the last chapter 
of this volume, of describing the development of the 
denominational spirit through occasional councils, local 
and State associations and conferences, and finally 
through the National Council, into visible unity. 

Thus Congregationalists, by the expanding and 
liberalizing of doctrinal beliefs within evangelical lines, 
by the development of the national spirit through the 
Civil War, In which they found themselves substan- 
tially united in favor of a union of the States, with 
freedom and the equality of all men of every race and 
color under one government, and by the necessity of 
extending their polity throughout the entire country, 
came into some fit sense of their national mission ; and 
in consequence their growth as a denomination has 
steadily and remarkably increased. 

Space allows only a meager account, mostly in the 
form of statistics, of the spread of Congregational 



THE NEW ERA. 403 

churches during- these last fifty years. In 1844 the 
only State organization west of New York was the 
General Association of Michigan, then two years old. 
The pioneer of the denomination In that State was a 
home missionary, Rev. John D. Pierce. By him the 
educational system of Michigan was drafted In 1837. 
The number of churches In fifty years has increased 
from about 30 to 346, with 27,954 members. In 1844 
the First Congregational Church of Detroit was or- 
ganized. In the same year the General Association of 
Illinois was formed. That State then contained about 
sixty Congregational churches. But It was not till 
1 85 1 that Congregationalism found a foothold in 
Chicago, when 42 of the 68 members of the Third 
Presbyterian Church of that city, having been excluded 
from the church by the Presbytery on account of their 
attitude on the slavery question, called a council and 
were recognized as the First Congregational Church of 
Chicago. Only four Congregational churches could 
then be found within a radius of forty miles. The 
Chicago Association now includes more than 100 
Churches. For more than a quarter of a century Dr. 
E. P. Goodwin has been the faithful pastor of the 
First Church, which has grown to more than 1250 mem- 
bers, and has made Its good influence felt through- 
out the land. Plymouth Church was formed the next 
year after the First, the New England in 1853 ^^^ 
Union Park in i860. Of the latter Dr. F. A. Noble 
has been pastor for fifteen years, and its membership 
is larger than that of the First Church. In 1894 there 
were 57 Congregational churches in Chicago, the 
largest number in any city in the United States. In 
Illinois there are 311 churches, with 40,238 members. 



404 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



The banner of Congregationalism was first perma- 
nently planted west of the Mississippi River at Den- 



mark, la., In 1838. 
Association of that 
1840. The churches, 
but slowly in num- 
began of the '' Iowa 
that State In Novem- 
said, '' If each one of 
one good and perma- 
together build a col- 
that will be ! " They 
mission. These 
In fifty years to 304, 



There the General 
State was formed In 
however, increased 
bers till the work 
Band," who entered 
ber, 1843. They 
us can only plant 
nent church, and all 
lege, what a work 
nobly fulfilled their 
churches have grown 
with a membership 




MEETING-HOUSE OF UNION PARK CHURCH, CHICAGO, ILL. 

of 28,5 1 5. Congregationalism began In Wisconsin with 
the removal to that country from Massachusetts of the 



THE NEW ERA. 405 

Stockbrldge Indians, among whom was a Congrega- 
tional church. In 1838, two years after Wisconsin was 
organized as a Territory, churches were formed at 
Waukesha and Beloit, and within the next two years 
10 others were organized. In 1840 the Presbyterian 
and Congregational Convention of Wisconsin was 
formed, from which the word Presbyterian has been 
recently dropped, since the churches of that name have 
withdrawn into organizations of their own denomina- 
tion. Wisconsin has now 236 churches. 

In 1 85 1 the first Congregational church for white 
people was organized in Minnesota, at St. Anthony, by 
Rev. Charles Seccombe. It is now the First Congrega- 
tional Church of Minneapolis. From that beginning 
there have grown 17 churches in that city and eight in 
St. Paul, while in the State there are 204 churches, 
with 16,448 members. 

Congregational missionaries have done valiant work 
in Missouri since 18 14. But the First Congregational 
Church of St. Louis, organized by Dr. Truman M. 
Post in 1852, stands at the head of the list in that 
State. In that year Dr. Post, after four years' service 
in the Third Presbyterian Church of that city, which 
then had 100,000 inhabitants, gathered a self-supporting 
church of the Congregational order. It stood alone 
till after the Civil W^ar, when a little band of New 
Englanders in 1866 formed the Pilgrim Church, whose 
meeting-house for more than twenty years has stood 
on the highest part of the city, and has extended its 
beneficent influence through the whole Southwest. 
Hither came as its third pastor, in 1872, Constans L. 
Goodell, and with this church he remained In a rarely 
happy and prosperous ministry till his death in 1886. 



4o6 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



The minister and the church were of the spirit which 
begets churches. They found in the First Church a 

hearty ally, and 
their number in 
that southern city 
has in twenty years 
multiplied from 
two to twenty. 

In 1853 th^ ^"" 
tire white popula- 
tion of Kansas and 
Nebraska, a region 
not yet having a 
territorial govern- 
ment, was less than 
600. But by that 
time Congrega- 
tionalists had be- 
gun to rekindle 
their missionary 
zeal with renewed 
confidence in their 
own polity, and 
the next year a 
Con gregational 
church was formed 
in Lawrence, and 
the First Church in Omaha in 1856. In these Ter- 
ritories, especially in Kansas, the battle between 
freedom and slavery was waged with great intensity 
for seven years before the Civil War broke out ; and 
the church militant was too busy in its conflict to 
multiply rapidly its organizations ; but in less than 




MEETING-HOUSE OF PILGRIM CHURCH, ST. LOUIS, MO, 



THE NEW ERA. 407 

forty years Kansas and Nebraska have each come 
to include i86 churches, though Kansas has 558 more 
members than Nebraska. 

** The First Congregational Church of Colorado " was 
the name by which the church at Central City was 
called, organized in 1863 ; but it has ceased to exist. 
A church was formed at Boulder and another in 
Denver, in 1864. The First Church stood alone in the 
latter city till 1879. ^^^ there are now 12 Congrega- 
tional churches in Denver and 58 in the State. 

Dakota was organized as a territory in 1861, includ- 
ing the two States which now bear that name, besides 
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. But very few white 
people settled in this vast region till some years after 
the Civil War. In 1868 a church of 11 members was 
gathered at Yankton by Rev. Elisha W. Cook. In 1869 
Rev. Joseph Ward became its pastor. He was a 
graduate from Andover Seminary the preceding year. 
Till his death in 1889 he was one of the foremost citi- 
zens of Dakota, deeply interested in laying the founda- 
tions of civil government as well as of churches and a 
Christian college. North Dakota had its first Congre- 
gational church in Fargo in 1881, and the following 
year two were formed in Montana. No Congrega- 
tional church was organized in Wyoming before 1884 
except the First Church at Cheyenne, which alone 
represented the denomination in that vast region for 
fifteen years. But South Dakota now stands sixteenth 
in our Year Book in the number of its churches among 
the 49 States and Territories. It has 143 churches, 
North Dakota 70, Wyoming 14 and Montana 10. 

The entire history of Congregationalism west of the 
Rocky Mountains is included within the last half 



408 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

century, and the most of Its growth has been within the 
last thirty years. In 1864 the whole section contained 
but 26 churches. CaHfornIa now has 184, the First 
Church of Oakland having more than 1200 members. 
Oregon has 51 and Washington 106, only 11 of which 
were organized previous to 1880. 

The Southern States show a remarkable growth of 
Congregational churches since the Civil War. The 
old Circular Church of Charleston, S. C, stands in the 
Year Book with the date of 1690. A number of Con- 
gregational churches were planted In Georgia and 
other Southern States In their early history. Several 
were organized also In the early years of the present 
century. But the attitude of the denomination toward 
slavery closed the South against Congregational 
churches till slavery was destroyed. Since 1870 their 
number has been steadily increasing. The first Con- 
gregational church In Florida was organized In 1875. 
In 1894 the number had increased to 55, with 1754 
members. Previous to 1870 there were only five 
churches In Georgia. In 1893 there were "j^, with 
41 1 1 members. Alabama had but two churches 
formed before 1870; the number was 88 in 1894, with 
4271 members. In all the Southern States there were 
In 1866 only 12 Congregational churches. In 1894 
there were 441 chu relies, with 26,063 members. About 
130 of these were mainly colored churches. In several 
of these States a considerable number of the churches 
of the Congregational Methodist denomination have 
recently been received into fellowship as Congrega- 
tional churches, maintaining their local district con- 
ferences. 

A digression may, perhaps, be as appropriate here 



THE NEW ERA. 



409 



as at any point In the history to describe briefly the 
churches of the British provinces of North America. 
Though these churches have no ecclesiastical affiliation 
with the Congregational churches of the United States, 
they have to a large extent been founded by American 
citizens, and many of their ministers have gone to 
them from the United States. 

Nova Scotia, first occupied by the French, was 
recovered by England in 1748. A few years later 
the English government offered free farms to New 
Englanders who would settle there. In 1759 ^^^ 
vessels went from Boston and four from Rhode 
Island with several hundred emigrants. Plymouth, 
Mass., and New London, Conn., sent 280. One of 
the towns founded by New England settlers was 
Chester, about forty miles west of Halifax, in 1759. 
Here Rev. John Seccombe, a Congregational minister 
from Harvard, Mass., labored for thirty-three years. 
Liverpool, seventy-five miles southwest of Halifax, 
was settled by families from Massachusetts, and a 
Congregational church was organized there in 1761. 
Another was soon after formed at Chebogue, now 
Yarmouth, and several others in the Annapolis Valley 
and along the Bay of Fundy. Some of these churches 
were composed of Separatists, or '' New Lights," as 
they were called, from Connecticut, whose peculiar 
beliefs were to be traced back to the mischievous work 
of James Davenport, following the Great Awakening 
of 1740. Another man of the same type appeared 
among the Nova Scotia Congregationalists about the 
year 1780, a disorderly evangelist, Henry Alline, and 
left wreck and ruin in his path. He was a native of 
Newport, R. I. 



4IO CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

New Brunswick in 1760 received a colony of emi- 
grants from Rowley, Newburyport and other towns of 
Essex County, Mass. They named their settlement 
Maugerville, and organized a Congregational church 
in 1766. Two or three other churches were formed at 
different points early in the present century, and the 
First Congregational Church of St. John in 1844. 

The one Congregational church in Newfoundland, 
that at St. Johns, dates back to about 1777, and was 
founded by a British soldier, John Jones, who was 
afterward ordained and served as pastor of the church 
till 1800. 

Congregationalism had little place in Canada before 
1833. Some Congregationalists from New Hampshire 
settled at Stanstead, across the "line" from Derby, 
Vt., about 1790, and a church was formed there in 
1798. The London Missionary Society, which is main- 
tained by English Congregationalists, sent a minister 
to Quebec, where he organized a church in 1801 ; but 
he suffered much from persecution by the government. 
Another representative of the same society organized 
a Congregational church in Montreal in 1832. It en- 
joyed for nearly half a century the ministry of Rev. 
Henry Wilkes and grew to strength and prosperity. 
There are now three Congregational churches in that 
city. Though the churches of the provinces have been 
hindered by isolation from one another and burdened 
by poverty, they have had and now have able and 
courageous leaders. There is a Congregational Union 
for Ontario and Qilebec, and another for Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick. The Congregational College in 
Montreal, under the care of Principal Barbour, has 
trained a number of ministers for the home and 



THE NEW ERA. 



411 



foreign field. The Canadian Missionary Society has 
done good service in bringing the churches together 
and aiding those that are feeble. The latest Canadian 
Year Book contains the statistics of 129 churches and 
48 preaching stations, 97 ministers and 10,415 church 
members. 

The following table presents the number of Con- 
gregational churches in each of the States and Terri- 
tories of the Union, in 1863 and 1893 : 





I 


863 


I 


893 




CHURCHES. 


MEMBERS. 


CHURCHES. 


MEMBERS. 


Alabama, 


^ 


.. 


88 


4,271 


Arizona, 


. . 


. . 


4 


204 


Arkansas, 


, , 


, . 


5 


324 


California, . 


16 


83S 


184 


15,137 


Colorado, 


I 


24 


58 


4,507 


Connecticut, 


284 


45,950 


312 


60,252 


District of Columbia, 


. . 




7 


2,067 


Florida, 


. . 


. . 


55 


1,754 


Georgia, . 


. . 


. . 


77 


4,111 


Idaho, 


, , 


. . 


8 


216 


Illinois, 


21T 


13,537 


311 


40,238 


Indiana, 


26 


804 


53 


3,415 


Indian Territory, 




• . 


5 


112 


Iowa, . 


148 


5,5^5 


304 


28,515 


Kansas, . 


32 


773 


186 


12,523 


Kentucky, . 






15 


604 


Louisiana, 


. . 




40 


1,501 


Maine, 


247 


19,341 


238 


21,413 


Maryland, 


. . 


. . 


4 


408 


Massachusetts, 


493 


73,479 


587 


107,524 


Michigan, 


141 


8,045 


346 


27,954 


Minnesota, . 


53 


1,657 


204 


16,448 


Mississippi, 


. . 




9 


143 


Missouri, 


5 


382 


83 


8,572 


Montana, 


. . 


. . 


10 


479 


Nebraska, 


10 


131 


186 


11,965 


Nevada, . 






I 


54 


New Hampshire, . 


^82 


18,600 


188 


19,585 



412 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 





1863 


1893 




CHURCHES. 


MEMBERS. 


CHURCHES. 


MEMBERS. 


New Jersey, 
New Mexico, 
New York, 
North Carolina, . 
North Dakota, 
Ohio, . 
Oklahoma, 
Oregon, 

Pennsylvania, . 
Rhode Island, 
South Carolina, 
South Dakota, 
Tennessee, 
Texas, 
Utah, 
Vermont, 
Virginia, 
Washington, 
West Virginia, 
Wisconsin, . 
Wyoming, 


6 

203 

161 

10 

22 

23 

195 
163 


981 

17,885 

12,262 
229 

745 
3,270 

17,380 
8,829 


32 

4 
283 

33 

70 

249 

39 

51 
109 

32 

4 

143 

31 

17 

10 

201 
2 

106 
2 

236 
14 


5,350 

215 
46,198 

1,451 
2,029 

35,838 

974 

2,977 
10,196 

7,481 

364 

5,529 

1,748 

1,140 

699 

20,771 

158 
4,502 

195 

18,975 
555 




2,632 


250,657 


5,23^ 


561,641 



The following- table shows the increase by decades 
during the present century : 



DATE. 


CHURCHES. 


MEMBERSHIP. 


1800, ........ 


850 


Unknown. 


181O, 


975 




1820, ........ 


1,100 


. . 


1830, 


1,300 


. . 


1840, 


1,575 


183,244 


1850, 


1,988 


205,872 


i860, 


2,583 


253,7-65 


1863, 


2,652 


260,284 


1873, 


3,325 


323,679 


1883, 


4,010 


396,209 


1893, 


5,236 


561,641 




JULIAN M. STQRTEVANT, D. D. 



THE NEW ERA. 413 

From the tables given above some interesting facts 
appear. The number of churches has nearly doubled, 
and the membership has considerably more than 
doubled during the last thirty years. The gain in 
churches and membership during these thirty years has 
been greater than during the two hundred and forty 
years previous to i860. The gain in membership dur- 
ing the last ten years is considerably greater than during 
the preceding twenty years. Figures not included in 
this volume show even a more encouraging growth in 
the Sunday schools than in church membership. The 
enrollment for 1893 was over 700,000, and has con- 
siderably more than doubled within twenty-five years. 
A great impulse has been given to this department 
by the employment of missionaries since 1882 to plant 
and foster Sunday schools in the newer parts of the 
country. In 1893 there were 975 such schools not con- 
nected with churches, with a membership of 49,271. 

A comparison between other statistics at hand shows 
also that fifty years ago more than four-fifths of the 
churches and members were in New England. In 
1893 nearly five-sevenths of the churches and more 
than one-half of the members were outside of New 
England. Fifty years ago there was not a single 
Congregational church west of the Mississippi River. 
The number of churches in that section in 1893 was 
greater than in the six New England States. 

Statistics show that the denomination has not only 
become national within the last thirty years, but that 
it is gaining most rapidly In sections where it has found 
a foothold within that period. In 1892, the latest 
figures at hand of additions to Individual churches, the 
following showed the greatest net growth : 



414 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



PLACE. 


NAME OF CHURCH, 


ADDITIONS. 


Seattle, Wash., . 


Plymouth, 


205 


Oakland, Cal, 


First, 


193 


Chicago, 111., 


First, .... 


165 


Tacoma, Wash., 


First, . . . 


161 


Portland, Ore., . 


First, .... 


147 


San Francisco, Cal., 


Plymouth, . 


122 


Brooklyn, N. Y., 


Central, .... 


117 


San Diego, Cal, 


First, 


114 


Detroit, Mich., . 


Plymouth, 


114 


Springfield, 111, 


First, 


97 


San Francisco, Cal, 


First, .... 


92 



Congregationalists in the United States according to 
the census of 1890 stand eighth in the number of 
church members and sixth in the value of their church 
property. The statistics of ecclesiastical organizations 
are as follows : 



DENOMINATIONS. 


CHURCH 
ORGANIZATIONS. 


VALUE OF PROPERTY. 


MEMBERS. 


Roman Catholics, 


10,221 


$118,381,516 


6,250,045 


Methodists, . . . 




51.489 


132,140,179 


4,589.287 


Baptists, 






40,727 


75.003,258 


3r593.766 


Presbyterians, 






13.490 


94,876,233 


1,278,815 


Lutherans, . 






8,427 


34,218,234 


1,199,514 


Disciples of Christ, 






8,670 


13,980,270 


744,773 


Protestant Episcopal, 






5.019 


81,066,317 


532,054 


Congregationalists, 






4,868 


43.335.437 


512,771 


Reformed Church, 






2,181 


18,744,242 


309.458 


Brethren in Christ, 






4,614 


5.003,633 


227,886 


Evangelical Association, 






2,310 


4,785,680 


^33,3^3 


Jews, 






533 


9.754,275 


130,496 


Friends, 






1,056 


4,541,000 


107,208 


Unitarians, 






421 


10,335,100 


67.749 


Universalists, 






956 


8,054,333 


49,194 


Spiritualists, . 






334 


573.650 


45.030 


Christian Scientists, . 






221 


40,666 


8,724 


Salvation Army, 






329 


37,350 


8,662 


Swedenborgians, 






154 


1,386,455 


7,095 


Theosophists, 






40 


600 


695 



THE NEW ERA. 415 

The ten largest churches in 1893 were as follows : 



PLACE. 


NAME. 


MEMBERS. 


Brooklyn, N. Y., 


Tompkins Avenue, 


1895 


Brooklyn, N. Y., . 


Central, 


1867 


Brooklyn, N. Y., 


Plymouth, 


I813 


Chicago, 111,, . 


Union Park, 


1275 


Oberlin, 0., ... 


First, .... 


T269 


Chicago, III, . 


First, 


1258 


Oakland, Cal. . . . 


First, .... 


I2IO 


New York, N. Y., . 


Tabernacle, 


II18 


Minneapolis, Minn., . 


Plymouth, . 


II16 


Chicago, III., . 


Plymouth, 


1047 



The following are the cities where the strength of 
Congregationalism is greatest, the number of churches 
and members being in 1894 : 



CITY. 


NUMBER OF 
CHURCHES. 


MEMBERS. 


Brooklyn, N. Y., 


20 


12,179 


Chicago, III, 


57 


11,883 


Boston, Mass., 


31 


11,017 


New Haven, Conn., . . . 


17 


6,586 


Worcester, Mass., 


17 


5.162 


Cleveland, 0., 


18 


4,696 


Hartford, Conn. 


II 


4,189 


Minneapolis, Minn., .... 


18 


4,049 


Providence, R. I., 


II 


4,017 


Springfield, Mass., .... 


12 


3,647 


St. Louis, Mo., 


20 


3,228 


New York, N. Y , 


9 


3,009 


Denver, Col, ..... 


12 


2,033 



The name of Congregationalist has been disclaimed 
by Unitarians as a body, and is not claimed by Uni- 
versalists, though both denominations hold the sub- 
stance of the Congregational polity so far as it relates 
to the sufficiency of the local congregation. Baptists 



4i6 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



and Free Baptists are Congregational in their govern- 
ment. There are, therefore, in the United States 
nearly fifty thousand churches with a membership of 
about four and a half millions who maintain the form of 
church government Introduced into this country by the 
Pilgrims and Puritans, and continued by their descend- 
ants. 

Congregationalists in other countries give no reliable 
statements of membership. The latest facts obtain- 
able as to the number of churches and ministers abroad 
in 1892-93 are given below, which do not include 
churches in heathen lands maintained by foreign mis- 
sionary societies : 







CHURCHES 




COUNTRIES. 


AND 


MINISTERS. 






STATIONS. 




Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, . 


177 


97 


England and Wales, 




4,468 


2,725 


Scotland, 




100 


118 


Ireland, 




28 


29 


Continental Europe, 




44 




British America, 




173 


88 


Australasia, 




306 


150 


New Zealand, 




21 


26 


South Africa, . 




156 


64 


Jamaica, 




38 


10 


British Guiana, 




40 


9 


China, 




2 


2 


India, 


* • • • . 


8 




Totals, 


5,5^3 


3,318 



In the earlier history of our country ministers formed 
exclusively most of the organizations representing the 
churches, and were controlling in them all. During 
the present century laymen have taken increasing In- 



THE NEW ERA. 417 

terest and responsibility in the general business of the 
churches. Within the last twenty-five years an impor- 
tant social feature of Congregationalism has been the 
clubs which have sprung up in the chief cities through- 
out the whole country. The first Congregational club 
was formed in Boston in 1869, to encourage among the 
churches of the city and vicinity *'a more friendly 
and intimate acquaintance, to secure concert of action 
and to promote the general interests of Congrega- 
tionalism." Fifty similar clubs have since been or- 
ganized, extending from Maine to southern California. 
In many of them women are admitted to membership 
on the same terms with men. These clubs discuss a 
wide range of topics of interest to the denomination, 
and ai:e an important auxiliary to its growth and unity. 

In the new movement to reach and help the mul- 
titudes of non-churchgoers Congregationalists are at 
the front. The majority of what are known as institu- 
tional churches are Congregational. Among the most 
prominent are Berkeley Temple, Boston, the Fourth 
Church, Hartford, Conn., the Tabernacle, Jersey City, 
N. J., and Plymouth Church, Milwaukee, Wis. Con- 
gregationalists are also prominently interested in the 
social settlements and rescue missions which are be- 
coming an important feature of Christian work in many 
American cities. 

From this survey of the history of Congregational- 
Ism for three hundred years we turn for a moment to 
the future. What are the prospects of growth and 
influence for this denomination in the United States? 
We have found it the most prominent factor in form- 
ing the character of our civil government in its begin- 
ning ; efficient in promoting the self-government of the 



41 8 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

colonies, and ultimately their federal union and inde- 
pendence ; constant in advocacy of those principles 
which have prevailed of liberty for all men and their 
.equality as citizens ; steadfast in its adherence to the 
authority of the Holy Scriptures and to the evangelical 
doctrines revealed in them, while affording to every 
one freedom of conscience in interpreting the Scrip- 
tures ; earnest in its missionary spirit, and prompt to 
adapt itself to the changing conditions and needs of 
the people. We have found that the most recent 
growth of Congregationalism has been the most rapid. 
Its churches, educational institutions, missionary enter- 
prises and organized bodies of churches are established 
oil a substantial, enduring basis. In its faith it is in 
harmony with the prevailing religious belief of the 
people. In its democratic polity it is in harmony with 
our principles of free government. Congregationalism 
has larger opportunities and more encouraging pros- 
pects than ever before in its history. May it fulfill 
worthily its mission to spread the gospel brought from 
Heaven by our Lord and Saviour Christ, and to main- 
tain the liberty under beneficent laws which has been 
dearly bought and must always be vigilantly defended. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST, 
(^j Rev. Joseph E. Roy, D. D.) 

THE Northwest Territory, named by the ordinance 
of 1787, was that part of our new wild domain 
lying between the Ohio and the Mississippi and reach- 
ing to the Lakes. In due time it was carved into its 
five grand commonwealths. Subsequent acquisitions 
have pushed that Northwest on over the Rocky Moun- 
tains, introducing into our family of States a dozen 
others, leaving Alaska now as our only Northwestern 
Territory. 

Congregationalism was the first Protestant religious 
system to break over into that original Northwest. 
Indeed it led over the first colony, having practically 
secured in the ordinance itself that provision whereby 
freedom and education were made the inheritance not 
only of our great interior, but of the belt across the 
continent. Manasseh Cutler, LL. D., a Congrega- 
tional pastor in Massachusetts, was a director and the 
agent of the Ohio Company, which was composed of 
Revolutionary officers and soldiers who proposed to 
make a settlement over there, accepting a million and 
a half acres of land in payment for their military serv- 
ices. But they would not go unless freedom and the 
means of education were provided for the entire ter- 
ritory. Dr. Cutler, representing the company, spent 

419 



420 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the winter of 1787 in New York during the session 
of Congress that passed the ordinance, and through 
Nathan Dane was largely instrumental in securing in 
it the provision for freedom and education. Thomas 
Jefferson was not a member of that Congress, being 
abroad on public duty ; but he had previously proposed 
a prohibition of slavery within that territory after the 
year 1800. Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent 
as agents made the contract with the Board of the 
Treasury for the United States. Before the colony left 
in the spring of 1 788 the directors had named their town 
Marietta after the Queen of France, and had taken meas- 
ures to provide for teaching and for preaching in their 
settlement. Among the members of the corporation 
were several Congregational clergymen. One of these 
was Daniel Breck, who on visiting the colony as 
early as July of 1788 preached four or five Sundays and 
thus inaugurated public worship in the Northwest Terri- 
tory. Other occasional supplies were soon followed by 
the pastorate of Daniel Story, a Dartmouth man, an 
uncle of the eminent jurist Joseph Story. Dr. Cutler 
had sent on the young pastor. He had written to 
General Putnam that he had requested the treasurer, 
Colonel Piatt, to forward the sum that had been raised 
for the support of preachers and schoolmasters ; and by 
the last of August he was on the ground himself 
preaching on the text : "' For from the rising of the sun 
even unto the going down of the same my name shall be 
great among the Gentiles" ; and saying, ''We this day 
literally see the fulfillment of the prophecy of our text." 
But, on account of the Indian wars, in which, at. an 
expense of thirty thousand dollars, the colonists had 
built and held their forts against the combined forces 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 



421 



of twenty-one tribes of savages backed by British emis- 
saries, the Congregational church was not organized 
until 1796. Of the thirty-two charter members all 
but one had been members of such churches in New 
England. As early as 1797 the Muskingum Academy 




Wlliifn(i/////iii(iiiiiimii,H,„ ,:,,,, m 



M'.i:ui!;;:.:iJi,;i;,Jiililli:iiiilllll!lil\..V.\iili:iiililiiii!iliiii 



MARIETTA COLLEGE, MARIETTA, O. 

was started, and David Putnam, a grandson of Major- 
General Israel Putnam, was the first teacher. Then 
in due time came on Marietta College to be a foun- 
tain of learning and of religion in all that region, 
as well as a gracious influence on the Virginia side 
of the Ohio. 

Congregationalism at the birth of the century also 
passed over into this Promised Land along with the 



422 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Connecticut Land Company and the multitude of her 
people, among whom were many whose homes had 
been burned out during the Revolution and to whom 
the State had allotted lands in the Western Reserve, 
which embraced the ten counties and four fractional 
counties in the northeast corner of Ohio. This tract 
Connecticut had reserved in her cession to the F'ederal 
government of her belt across the continent as granted 
by her original charter. The portion sold to the com- 
pany brought one million two hundred thousand dol- 
lars, which sum was put into a school fund for the 
children. The Congregational Missionary Society of 
Connecticut, organized in 1798, followed into this 
wilderness her children who had exiled themselves from 
their New England homes. It was just about this 
time, 1 801, that the Presbyterian General Assembly 
and the General Association of Connecticut entered 
into the Plan of Union, described in Chapter XVII. — 
an arrangement which, though devised in the spirit of 
fellowship, became a process for building up Presby- 
terianism out of Congregational material. This new 
Connecticut went on receiving her people, her ideas, 
her church life, her ministers, from the old State, and 
the Missionary Society of the old State went on moth- 
ering them for a quarter of a century, until the new 
National Society taking them up, in 1826, in its first 
report set forth a whole synod of Presbyterian churches, 
eighty-seven of them, already gathered there and served 
by forty-two so-called Presbyterian ministers, almost 
all of whom had been Congregationalists and mission- 
aries of the Connecticut Society — and all this under the 
Plan of Union ! In 1835 Rev. Ansel R. Clark found one 
hundred and sixty of these ministers. The nativity of 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 423 

one hundred and one was in New England ; of twenty- 
one In New York, where the same process had been 
going on ; and of fifteen unknown. More than half 
were from New England colleges. In 1845 R^v. Dr. 
G. E. Pierce found there in Presbytery ninety-eight 
Congregational churches, sixteen New School Presby- 
terian and only nine Old School Presbyterian churches. 
Besides these, he found twenty-two Congregational 
churches not in Presbytery, and twenty-four in the 
Western Reserve (Oberlin) Association, making in 
all one hundred and forty-four, against the nine Old 
School Presbyterians on the Reserve. These changes 
went on until in New York and the West as many 
as fifteen hundred Presbyterian churches had come of 
Congregational membership. At one time in the 
former New School Assembly, when those who were of 
New England origin "vwere called upon to rise, two- 
thirds of the body came to their feet. Rev. A. T. 
Norton, in his '* History of the Presbyterlanism of 
Illinois," says: *' After some investigation, though not 
pretending to positive accuracy of knowledge, it is my 
full belief that during the whole period of the exist- 
ence of the Presbyterian Church in this country, at 
least one-half its members have been, and are. New 
Enorlanders and their descendants." Toward the end 
of the period of partnership in the American Home 
Missionary Society it came out that while two-thirds 
of the beneficiary churches were Presbyterian, two- 
thirds of the money w^as coming from Congregational 
sources : " Milk from the Congregational cows churned 
into Presbyterian butter." 

This resultant of the Plan of Union was not ar- 
rested until a Congregational convention, held at 



424 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Michigan City, Ind, in 1846, protested against this 
denominational abnegation, and the Albany Conven- 
tion in 1852 repudiated the entangling alliance. It is 
something of a compensation to this numerical loss 
that the Puritan principles have been so much the 
more propagated. In this way a stream of New 
England theology has been poured across the West. 
The New School ministers and churches exscinded from 
the old General Assembly were simply a body of New 
Englandized Presbyterianism. Thus the science of 
theology had been made so much the gainer. It is 
also due to the scope of history to put on record the 
fact that, as the anti-slavery sentiment was under 
process of development, the Congregational system, by 
its advanced ideas on this subject, by its freedom from 
organic connection with slavery and from the repress- 
ive ecclesiastical machinery of Presbyterianism, had 
the advantage and by it gained largely, especially in 
the West, not only by the turning back of Plan of 
Union churches, but In the organizing of new churches, 
— enough nearly to counterbalance the loss by the old- 
time co-operation. In the midst of that conflict the 
Congregatlonallsts of the Western Reserve at one time 
sent Joshua R. Giddlngs, then a Member of Congress, as 
a member of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Phil- 
adelphia, to represent their interests and feelings as anti- 
slavery men ; but in spite of his most herculean efforts 
that body refused even to pronounce slavery a wrong. 
It is in place to mark another stream of influence 
from that missionary society of Connecticut. Out of 
that divine ferment in Williams College, which gave 
life to the American Board, came also a fresh impulse 
to the work of Christianizing our own country. In 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST, 425 

181 2 Samuel J. Mills, the associate of Hudson, Hall, 
Newell and Nott, was sent by that society, along with 
John F. Schermerhorn, to make a tour of explo- 
ration through the Western States and down to New 
Orleans. On horseback they went forth, crossing 
Pennsylvania, skirting Ohio and Virginia, teaching 
and preaching at Marietta, Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg, 
Frankfort, Lexington, Shawneetown and Nashville ; 
Thence for thirty days down the Cumberland and 
Mississippi to Natchez, as the guests of General 
Andrew Jackson, who, with fifteen hundred soldiers, 
was also going down to New Orleans on a mission ! 
After a stay of a month at Natchez, where they organ- 
ized the First Presbyterian Church, they went on to 
New Orleans, where, after preaching a while, they 
organized the First Presbyterian, as It was the first 
Protestant, Church of that city. After Mills the same 
society sent Ellas Cornelius, subsequently a sec- 
retary of the American Board, to preach for a while to 
the New Orleans church ; and after him It sent from 
Andover the eloquent Sylvester Larned to become Its 
pastor, whose popularity Is to this day commemorated 
by a stone tablet at the entrance way of that fine 
church on Lexington Park — and all this under the pay 
of that old Connecticut Society. The veteran pastor 
of that church, the most eloquent Presbyterian 
preacher in the South, B. M. Palmer, D. D., In 
a commemorative discourse not long ago, gratefully 
acknowledged the founding and the early supple- 
mental support of his church by Congregational en- 
terprise and generosity. 

In 1814 the same society sent Mills and Daniel 
Smith on another tour. This time they made their 



426 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

way to St. Louis,- which they found to be a village 
of two thousand, three-fourths of whom were Catholics. 
They preached the first Protestant sermons on that 
side of the Father of Waters, and prepared the way 
for the coming to St. Louis from Andover in 1816 
of Rev. Salmon Giddings, a cousin of Joshua R. Gid- 
dings. It was not until after he had spent a year and 
a half of hard labor that he was able to gather the 
First Presbyterian Church of that city, of nine mem- 
bers, five of whom were from the Massachusetts and 
Congregational family of Stephen Hempstead, who 
was made an elder, though he lived five miles out of 
town. To the day of his death, in 1828, Giddings 
remained in that church under the commission and the 
pay of the society which had sent him out. That 
mother of churches — claiming as her daughters the 
Second, of which Dr. E. F. Hatfield was pastor ; 
the Third, which, under Dr. T. M. Post, became the 
First Congregational — has herself had an illustrious 
pastoral succession : Mr. Giddings and Drs. W. S. 
Potts, William Wisner, Artemas Bullard, Henry A. 
Nelson and C. A. Dickey. But more than this, during 
those years of missionary commission this original St. 
Louis pastor was serving as an apostolic evangelist on 
both sides of the Mississippi until he had gathered sev- 
enteen Presbyterian churches, organizing nine of them 
as the Missouri Presbytery and eight as the Illinois Pres- 
bytery. And still more : all this time to Mr. Giddings, 
as the bishop, missionaries were sent from the East for 
direction as to location in these Presbyterian churches, 
— twelve of them Congregationalists, nine of whom 
were under commission of the Connecticut Society. 
This same generosity was manifested in the young 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 427 

State of Indiana as well as of Illinois. "A Brief His- 
tory of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana," by Rev. 
John M. Dickey, as quoted by James H. Johnston in 
his " Ministry of Forty Years in Indiana," says of the 
societies which had operated there : '* Of these the 
Connecticut seems to have the first claim to our 
gratitude. Her missionaries have been found among 
the first heralds of the Cross in these Western wilds; 
and for whole years together they have prosecuted 
their arduous labors amid perils and privations innu- 
merable." I count up eight or ten of these Con- 
necticut missionaries who had been sent on under 
commission to serve these Presbyterian churches of 
Indiana before the American Home Missionary Society 
assumed this work. It was a dozen Congregational 
ministers who were sent by the Connecticut Society to 
build up Presbyterian churches in Illinois at such 
places as Alton, Carrolton, Vandalia, Springfield and 
others of like grade. There is a fascination in this 
unselfish prodigality with which New England was 
thus pouring her life into the West, and all the time 
into a rival ecclesiastical system. The denomination, 
which, like the two and a half tribes, went over the 
Jordan to establish a sister denomination in the pos- 
session of this Canaan of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 
Missouri, at last, returned to its tents and to its own 
work. Though upon its return when it began to build 
its own altar over against the land of Canaan there 
was something of a fiurry, as though it were a "tres- 
pass," yet, upon explanation and mutual expression of 
loyalty to the one religion, the altar became a witness 
between them, so that neither could say to the other, 
*'Ye have no part in the Lord." 



428 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



Now, Up to date, this original Northwestern Terri- 
tory numbers her Congregational Israel as follows : 



STATES. 


CHURCHES. 


MINISTERS. 


MEMBERS, 


S. S. MEMBERS. 


BENEVOLENCES. 


Ohio, . 


249 


234 


35,838 


35,779 


$61,593 


Indiana, . 


53 


31 


3,415 


5,471 


4,783 


Illinois, 


311 


367 


40,238 


51,538 


303,150 


Michigan, 


346 


290 


27,954 


36,941 


78,813 


Wisconsin, . 


236 


240 


18,975 


20,853 


59,286 



To-day in these five States there are more than 
22,000 Protestant churches, more than 2,000,000 
church members, while not far from 1 7,000 clergymen 
minister to these congregations. 

The American Home Missionary Society, organized 
in 1826, took up the western work of the Connecti- 
cut Society and of the United Domestic Missionary 
Society of New York, and ever since has been the 
great propagandist of this church system, drawing the 
New England zone across the continent. For the 
first thirty-five years it was the common organ of this 
denomination and of the New School Presbyterian. 
During its entire period of action up to 1893 it has 
raised and expended $15,384,895, the bulk of which 
has been used in the western field ; and of the total, 
since the withdrawal of the Presbyterians, the Congre- 
gationalists alone have raised through that society 
$11,371,697, and counting half of the previous sum, 
$13,378,286. The Congregational Church Building 
Society has aided 2444 churches in securing 2444- 
houses of worship and 432 parsonages. During the 
period of anti-slavery agitation the American Mis- 
sionary Association was aiding as many as 70 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 429 

churches in this interior. The Congregational Sunday 
School and Publishing Society has been a benediction 
to the children of the West ; and in these late years, 
since 1883, its missionary department has been the 
means of developing more than 450 of its schools into 
churches. The New West Education Commission, 
now consolidated with the American Education 
Society, has planted schools and academies in Utah 
and New Mexico that have become permanent factors 
in the educational problem of that deep interior, and 
in due time will supply the college for each State. 

Its influence in behalf of education is a part of the 
history of this church life in the Northwest. It is 
difficult to apprehend fully the benefit that has inured 
to our country from the provision made in the ordi- 
nance of 1787, whereby, in all the region reaching to 
the Mississippi and, later, to the Pacific coast, every 
sixteenth section of every township was dedicated to 
free schools ; and this, as has been shown, was secured 
by that Yankee Congregational colony of Revolution- 
ary soldiers. Then the Christian college was an 
essential part of that ideal. The first home missionary 
to the new Connecticut (1801) in a four-horse wagon, 
emigrating with his wife and six children, brings along 
the college idea. In 1803 he and a dozen laymen, 
among them David Hudson, who gave the name to 
his town, are incorporated as a board of trustees, with 
the purpose of " establishing an institution adequate 
to the preparation of young men for the ministry." 
The school is a long time in getting under way, until 
in 1822 a half dozen more missionaries coming on, 
new life is given It and a theological department is 
added, with Rev. C. B. Storrs as president and pro- 



430 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

fessor of theology, and with other such men in the 
faculty as Professor Elias Loomis, Hon. Elizur Wright, 
Dr. Delamater, and Drs. L. P. Hickok, E. P. 
Barrows, Clement Long, H. N. Day, S. C. Bartlett, 
H. P. Hitchcock, P. A. Chadbourne, N. S. Burton 
and Carroll Cutler, a galaxy in the scientific and 
theological world. In 1829 Illinois College follows 
under the same inspiration. Since 1816 Salmon Gid- 
dings has been at St. Louis under the Connecticut 
Society. He brings on from Andover John M. Ellis 
and locates him at Kaskaskia. Ellis, at his ordination 
in the Old South Church, Boston, had received from 
Elias Cornelius the charge : *' Build up an institution 
of learning which shall bless the West for all time." 
They locate their institution at Jacksonville, and Ellis 
in the Home Missionary reports a revival and calls for 
help in behalf of the college. This report comes 
before a mission band in Yale divinity school. The 
two streams coalesce, and soon the dozen men of the 
''Illinois Band" are on the ground to build up the 
college and its cordon of supporting churches, and 
to give character to the commonwealth. Out of the 
movement came also Monticello Seminary with its 
three thousand educated young ladies, and the Jackson- 
ville Female College, a fountain of life, and also the 
College Society itself, born out of the brain of Bald- 
win, one of the Yale Band. The names of these men 
in Illinois are household words — J. M. Sturtevant, 
Theron Baldwin, Mason Grosvenor, William Kirby, 
John F. Crooks, Elisha Jenney, Asa Turner, William 
Carter, Albert Hale, Romulus Barnes, Lucian Farn- 
ham and Flavel Bascom. Next, in 1832, comes 
Wabash College, Indiana, in which John M. Ellis 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 431 

is again in the lead. He and four other home mission- 
aries, after three days of consultation and prayer, go 
out to the spot selected in the midst of the primeval 
forest and there, kneeling in the snow, join in dedicat- 
ing the ground to God for a Christian College. In 
the same year Lane Seminary takes up its mission. 
In 1833 Oberlin makes the start upon her majestic 
educational career, and by and by her daughter Olivet 
in Michigan. In 1835 Marietta College takes on the 
college name and charter. In 1836 Knox College, 
Illinois, another importation of colony life, comes 
along with an initial endowment provided for in the 
sale of lands, and later, in the same State, Wheaton 
College. In 1847 Beloit College, Wisconsin, comes 
upon the stage, and then her younger sister, Ripon. 
These institutions were nearly all started upon the 
co-operative plan ; but now Western Reserve and Lane 
and Wabash are apt to be recognized as Presbyterian 
and the others as Congregational, except that Knox, 
by subsequent compact, is to be held on a balance 
between the two denominations. In addition, within 
the old Northwest, the Presbyterians have their Alma 
College, their Blackburn University and their Mc- 
Cormick Theological Seminary, and the Congrega- 
tionalists their Chicago Theological Seminary. 

Have these institutions repaid the cost of their mis- 
sionary planting? Many times over. They have 
themselves become missionary evangelists, both as to 
conversions among their students and as to evangelis- 
tic service in the regions round about them. They 
have been aboundingly successful in raising up culti- 
vated and consecrated ministers, both for the home 
field and the foreign. They have also provided edu- 



432 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



cated Christian men and women for the other profes- 
sions and vocations as a vast evangelizing power. 
They have trained leaders for the social and civil 




CHAPEL, BELOIT COLLEGE, BELOIT, WIS. 

life. It is safe to say that by these and other similar 
institutions the cast of character for intelligence and 
morality and religion and civil probity has been largely 
effected In these great Interior commonwealths and 
also in those of the regions beyond. Subtract their 
influence from the moral forces of these parts of our 
country, and who would care to contemplate the result ? 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 433 

There is a contagion in learning. Education takes the 
supremacy In communities and in States. Simply mar- 
velous is the influence of this educating process, not 
only in the region round about these moral and intel- 
lectual centers, but throughout the land. The practical 
work done by these schools for our country in the way 
of Christian patriotism I bring as a final illustration. 
When the slaveholders' rebellion broke out these 
colleges were almost literally emptied of their soldier 
material. Wabash counted two hundred and seventy- 
five of her sons in the army ; of whom three were 
major-generals, three brigadiers, nine coJonels, six 
lieutenant-colonels, three majors, eleven surgeons, five 
chaplains, fifty captains and forty lieutenants. Oberlin 
counted seven hundred, of whom one hundred fell in 
the service ; Marietta had one hundred and four, who 
furnished twenty-eight line ofificers and represented 
every one of their then twenty graduated classes ; 
Belolt, sixty-nine, with twenty-four line ofificers ; young 
Iowa, sixty-five ; while each of the several others had 
its similar roll of honor. It is also an indicative fact 
as to the influence of this church system that the Con- 
gregational churches in these States and in those 
beyond the great river, as learned by circular at the 
time, sent into the army of the Union one in four of 
their entire male membership, including old m^en, in- 
valids and boys. 

The securing of the trans-Mississippi regions of the 
Northwest to the area of our country was by a marked 
providential overruling of the plans of the nation. 
Our territory had been bounded on the west by that 
river. We wanted no more, except that we had been 
trying for years to secure from the court of Spain the 



434 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

control of the mouth of the river, so that its commerce 
might have free access to the ocean. In 1797 we 
instructed our minister there, Mr. Carmichael, to urge 
the following considerations: (i) a guarantee of the 
Spanish possession beyond the river ; (2) that it would 
be safer for Spain that the United States should be her 
neighbor than England ; (3) that conquest was not one 
of our principles, but was inconsistent with our idea 
of government ; (4) that it was not our intention to 
cross the Mississippi for ages — would never be for our 
interest to remain connected with any one who might 
cross it. Yet this urgency availed not. Soon Spain 
cedes this region to France. Napoleon is threatened 
with another war. He wants money. He fears Eng- 
land may deprive him of this newly acquired colonial 
empire. For fifteen million dollars he offers our min- 
ister, not New Orleans only, but the whole territory. 
Monroe and Livingston have no authority in such a 
case ; they have no steamers, no cable, by which to 
consult with authorities at home. *'The whole or 
none," says Napoleon. They take the responsibility. 
And so that Louisiana Purchase, which is to form on 
the west side of the Mississippi a line of common- 
wealths in double and triple tier from the Gulf to the 
British line, is forced upon us by Divine Providence. 
God seems to have purposed to intrust those yet 
unborn States to the English-speaking Protestant 
nation rather than to leave them to the tutelage of a 
foreign tongue and of the Romish system. As to 
what it miofht have been otherwise we are not left to 
conjecture. The early Arherican settlers in St. Louis 
were not allowed to have a Protestant house of wor- 
ship. In the '' Natchez Country," the lower part of 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 435 

the territory, it had been a crime at law to meet 
for a public Protestant worship, and persons were 
arrested for doing so. During the British posses- 
sion of West Florida, 1763-69, a Congregational 
colony from New Jersey, under the lead of Captain 
Amos Ogden and Rev. Samuel Swayze and his 
brother Richard, settled upon a grant of twenty- 
five thousand acres from George III., sixteen miles 
back from Fort Rosalie, where is now the city of 
Natchez. Theirs was the first Protestant church and 
Mr. Swayze the first minister of that faith to settle in 
all that southwestern region. But as soon as Spain 
resumed the sovereignty Romanism was declared to be 
the only allowable religion in it. Persecution at once 
set in against the pastor and his flock. Protestant 
Bibles and other books were seized and consigned to 
the flames. Father Swayze, in order to secure his 
Bible and himself from this inquisitorial grasp, re- 
tired to a cane-brake on the margin of a small stream 
— still marked on the maps as "Sammy's Run" — and 
there fixed him a seat in the hollow of a large syca- 
more tree where he often sat to read the Bible and 
where he kept it concealed from his persecutors. That 
church disappeared, but its descendants, of positive 
character, yet abide in the Methodist and Baptist 
churches of that region. 

The old pastor and his wife were buried on the 
bank of the Mississippi, near Fort Rosalie ; but this 
graveyard long since caved into the river, so that the 
dust of the Puritan divine and his wife was literally 
'' carried down by the flood and lost in following years." 
But his spirit has not been lost In the flood of years 
to that Louisiana Territory ; nor does that system 



436 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of Papal hierarchy dominate over there. I have 
shown how that spirit reappeared at St. Louis in the 
visit of Samuel J. Mills and in the pastorate and apos- 
tolic evangelism of Salmon Giddings, who, upon 
arrival there after his horseback journey of twelve hun- 
dred miles, took up a city paper and read a '' Caution" 
against a man who had been commissioned to visit 
them from New England as a political maneuver of 
the Hartford Convention ! It is still further a gratify- 
ing consideration that, notwithstanding the diver- 
sion already noted of the Congregational influ- 
ence into another channel, since the overthrow of the 
system of slavery, as despotic as Romanism, the Con- 
gregational churches in that city have increased 
in number to 20, with 3200 members, with 4500 
Sunday-school scholars, while the total of benevolent 
offerings for one year in three of its churches amounted 
to $19,969. In the State there is a general associa- 
tion, with five local associations, and 85 churches, 
with a membership of 8572; and withr its Kidder 
Institute and Drury College, which, with Dr. Pear- 
sons' $25,000, in these '* troublous times," has just 
completed an endowment of $100,000, with a generous 
additional sum pledged toward another $100,000 on 
the same terms. 

The next Congregational drive into that Louisiana 
portion of the Northwest was into Iowa. Previous to 
the coming of the Iowa Band in November, 1843, 
there was already in that territory a sacred seven of 
young Congregational ministers — Julius A. Reed, 
Reuben Gaylord, Charles Burnham, Allen B. Hitch- 
cock, Oliver Emerson, John C. Holbrook and Asa 
Turner, all of whom proved themselves men of dis- 




REV. ASA TURNER. 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 437 

tinguished success as builders of churches and of the 
State. The only survivor, Dr. Holbrook, whose first 
distinction came to him as publisher of the " Compre- 
hensive Commentary," at Brattleboro, Vt., is still 
bringing forth fruit in old age, having served for fifty- 
two years the First Church of Dubuque, the New Eng- 
land of Chicago, the Home Missionary Society of New 
York and the church of Stockton, Cal. The last 
named of the seven, Asa Turner, having been one 
of the Illinois Band, and having had his first pastorate 
at Quincy on the east bank of the river, was just the 
man to take in the possibilities of the young Iowa, and 
to be the first man to strike over there and to gather 
its first Congregational church, the one at Denmark, 
in 1838. And to whom in the fall of 1843 should the 
Iowa Band come but to Asa Turner at Denmark for 
ordination by council in his cabin church, and for 
counsel and direction as to the locating of their respec- 
tive fields of labor? They were twelve young men in 
Andover Seminary who had been drawn together by 
spirit and covenant to enter the Black Hawk Pur- 
chase within the Louisiana Purchase as frontier mis- 
sionaries. Their names were Daniel Lane, Harvey 
Adams, Erastus Ripley, Horace Hutchinson, Alden 
B. Robbins, William Salter, Edwin B. Turner, Ben- 
jamin A. Spaulding, William Hammond, James J. Hill, 
Ebenezer Alden, Jr., and Ephraim Adams. Ripley, 
Hill and Hammond were detained from coming with 
the first installment. The ordination was by the 
laying on of the hands of no ruling bishop, and the 
designation of their appointment was by no diocesan 
authority, but by the consentient action of themselves 
and the original fellow pioneers already named. Two 



438 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

other men already on the ground, W. A. Thompson 
and Dr. Granger, were added to the ordination group. 
Off they go to their allotted charges. They fall to 
work, each, in the training of experience, rallying the 
sympathetic elements of his community, and taking 
hold of the organizing of society in its varied relations. 
Two of them, Drs. Robbins and Salter, still retain 
their original charges at Muscatine and Burlington, 
except that the former is now pastor emeritus and the 
latter gave a year or two to Maquoketa before taking 
the place of his lif6 work. All have made good 
ministers of the word, faithful pastors. More than 
half of them have passed the semi-centennial of 
their ordination. The seven and the dozen, coal- 
escing and co-operating, at once gave prestige to their 
movements all along the front. It is not too much to 
say that their combined influence has given character 
not only to their denomination in the State, but to the 
State itself. Losing their lives, they found them. 
The first men are the historic men. They^themselves 
have been built into the commonwealth that lies 
between the two crreat rivers. 

When the band brought out their new idea of a 
college, they found that the pioneers had also been 
planning for It, with their Denmark Academy 
already chartered. It was opened in the historic 
church in the fall of 1845, ^^"^^ "^^ ^^^ twenty-five 
years has had a beautiful seventeen thousand dollar 
edifice for its home, having had for its first principal 
the apostolic MIcronesian missionary, Rev. A. A. 
Stiirges, the next our Arnold of Rugby, Professor 
H. K. Edson, who served it a quarter of a century be- 
fore taking a professor's chair in Iowa College. This 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 439 

was opened at Davenport in the fall of 1848, with 
Ripley of the band in charge. In i860 it was re- 
moved to Grinnell, where, in buildings that have risen 
up in the path of the cyclone, in the numbers of 
students, in their mental and moral equipments, in 
endowments partially secured and in extended and 
high-toned influence, it has come far along in the 
attainment of the New England ideal of a Christian 
college. The Hull Academy is striving to come 
into the attainment applied in the old academic 
name. 

Congregationalism in Minnesota has been a growth 
out of a congenial soil. Its churches, represented in a 
general association and in eight local conferences, 
number 204, with 16,448 members. Its Carleton 
College, like all the others a child of home missions, 
looks back to the day of its poverty as the day of 
its glory, when, calling to itself a president — James 
W. Strong, D. D. — the giving for it, in General 
Association, rolled up in one day over $16,000, 
until every home missionary was down for a sum 
that went beyond the point of feeling it. Up 
there the thrilling scene abides in thought as a 
sacred memento. That first strain probably cost 
more of sacrifice than the later raising, mostly in the 
State, of a $200,000 endowment. 

Kansas is a State with a history, and one of the 
earliest records of that history was the fact that the 
first home missionary to take a hand in its evolution 
out of troublous times — Rev. S. Y. Lum, locating at 
Lawrence — was a Conorreo^ationalist. That incident 
has been characteristic of the Congregational develop- 
ment along by the side of the progress of the State. 



440 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



Its Washburn College bears the Puritan likeness and 
seeks to honor it. Its Stockton Academy does the 
same. 

Nebraska, the twin sister of Kansas, was born out of 
great tribulation ; like her, has been making a church 




" "^ ' ■■■■• Wsv"**!*''*'^' 



MERRILL HALL AND BOSWELL OBSERVATORY, DOANE COLLEGE, CRETE, NEB. 



and college history justly to be proud of. The two 
Dakotas, by their advanced railway system having had 
a section of civilization dumped every eight miles along 
the railway lines, have kept up in church institutions 
with that process of transportation. Yankton College 
solves the riddle : Out of the eater comes forth meat ; 
out of drought and financial distress, with Dr. Pearsons' 
aid, comes forth a hundred thousand dollar endow- 
ment. And Colorado, the Centennial State, makes 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 44I 

its Puritan exhibit worthy of that national title. 
Wyoming is just now working up the scheme for its 
college at Big Horn. Utah and New Mexico, each out 
of the chrysalis of its New West Academy, is preparing 
to take to itself the wings of a college. Montana, 
holding the head waters of the Missouri, and so being 
still on the eastern slope, with its coterie of nine Con- 
gregational churches, will not fail to bring on its Puri- 
tan college and so fill out the Congregational area of 
the Louisiana Purchase. In 1903 will come the cen- 
tennial of that purchase. Here will be a fine opportu- 
nity for St. Louis, the central and the historic city in 
that majestic empire, to lead in the celebration of 
that event so fraught with the destiny of our country, 
even as Marietta, in 1888, celebrated its centennial 
era. 

But did that Purchase also sweep over the Rocky 
Mountain crest and take in the region now indicated 
as Oregon, Washington and Idaho ? So it has been 
claimed and so some maps have represented. As 
President Salisbury has collated the evidence, France 
never claimed anything beyond the Rockies. The 
royal charter of Louis XIV. to Anthony Crozzat, 
1 71 2, limited Louisiana to the valley of the Mississippi. 
When in 1800 Napoleon retroceded it to Spain it was 
to be "with the same extent it now has in the hands 
of Spain and that it had when France possessed it." 
Marbois, Napoleon's minister of the treasury, who as 
such was the negotiator of the sale, in his '' History of 
Louisiana," 1829, says, *^The shores of the western 
ocean were certainly not included in the cession"; and 
again, " The first article of the treaty meant to convey 
nothing beyond the sources of the Missouri." President 



44^ CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Thomas Jefferson and Secretary John Quincy Adams 
held this view. The latter made our title to Oregon to 
rest, (i) on the discovery of the Columbia, (2) the 
exploration of Lewis and Clark, 1805, (3) the settle- 
ment at Astoria, 1811. But the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany sought to jump that claim in its interest for 
trapping and in that of the British government for 
the sovereignty of the soil. Here again was a divine 
interposition. The pioneer Indian missionary Marcus 
Whitman, M. D., learning of this intent, in the fall 
and winter of 1842-43, on horseback, with a solitary 
companion, braved the terrors of a journey across the 
mountains and the continent to acquaint our govern- 
ment of that purpose and to induce it to save its own 
rightful possession. The result was accomplished, the 
doctor proving that settlements could there be made 
by actually taking over the mountains a large colony in 
wagons. Then came another providential overruling. 
By the massacre of Dr. Whitman and wife and thir- 
teen or more associates, the Indian mission was broken 
up, and its surviving band of foreign missionaries were 
turned loose as home missionaries to the incoming 
settlements of western Oregon, before they had been 
overtaken by the Home Missionary Society. In this 
way Walker and Eells and Spalding and Gray and 
Parker and their colonial followers were the very men 
who, by their necessities, took the lead in setting up 
a provisional territorial government, impressing their 
personnel upon all the early history of the region now 
named as these three Northwestern States. Gray be- 
came the historian ; Walker, a minister at large, and 
his sons Indian teachers and agents ; and Eells, a 
general missionary, a teacher at the Tualatin Academy 




GEORGE H. ATKINSON, D. D. 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 443 

and the founder at Walla Walla, near the site of the 
massacre, of the Whitman Seminary and Whitman 
College, putting into its endowment not less than 
twelve thousand dollars, besides years and years of 
labor without salary. The most of the churches in 
eastern Washington, now ministered unto by the 
noted Yale Band, were the fruit of his planting. 
One of Eells' sons, the Hon. Edwin Eells, has been 
for a score and five years in Washington the model 
Indian agent ; and another. Dr. Myron Eells, the 
missionary pastor under the American Missionary 
Association on the Puget Sound among the Skoko- 
mish and other Indians, has two churches, taking 
in also the citizen white people. Walker and Eells, 
in 1838, had been designated by the American Board 
to the Zulus of South Africa ; but by this Indian 
exigency of the foreign field in Oregon they were 
sent over the Rockies ; and there by another exi- 
gency they were diverted to the home department — 
all these changes in Providence turning out to be the 
highest wisdom. 

George H. Atkinson from Andover had also been 
appointed to the Zulu mission, but by the same exigency 
in Oreofon was transferred to that field under the 
Home Missionary Society, going on a whaling vessel 
by way of the Sandwich Islands, and arriving in 1848, 
just in the midst of the excitements and perils inci- 
dent upon the breaking up of the Indian missions. 
He had his pastorates at Oregon City and Portland. 
He was as a father to the Pacific University that grew 
up by the side of the Tualatin Academy, which itself 
had grown out of the school at Forest Grove for the 
orphans of the martyred missionaries. The later 



444 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

years of his life he had served as home missionary 
superintendent for Oregon and Washington, and by 
the time of his departure, after forty-one years on that 
coast, he was permitted to see these institutions estab- 
Hshed, to count up one hundred and forty-five Congre- 
gational churches, and to have witnessed the growth of 
those grand States up from their wilderness condition, 
himself built into their religious^ educational and civil 
life. 

California came into the Union as the result of the 
war with Mexico. As a providential interposition the 
discovery of gold was kept back until after the transfer 
of jurisdiction, so that the sudden influx of popula- 
tion might facilitate the Protestant assimilation of the 
people of the State. It has been a marvelous trans- 
formation by which the Romanized domain has come 
to be a preponderatingly Protestant member of our 
American Union — the Congregational system having 
done its share in the evolution of the Christian State, 
as indicated by its one hundred and eighty-eight 
churches, its academy and its theological seminary, 
and by its aid in molding public sentiment in behalf of 
all the elements that go to make up an enlightened 
commonwealth. The patriarch of all this develop- 
ment In that State of the Golden Gate is the Rev. 
James H. Warren, D. D., who has given to it the 
entire forty-four years of his ministry, having served 
as pastor, as editor and as general superintendent 
under the Congregational Home Missionary Society, 
and who is now engaged in writing up that striking 
history. 

Thus has been made good that '' Great Patent " of 
King James, 1620, which read : '' In length by all the 



CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE NORTHWEST. 445 

breadth aforesaid, throughout the main land from sea 
to sea." But a sovereign, even the King of Kings, 
had issued to the Puritan settlers His great patent as 
recorded in His Providence to possess not only that 
narrow strip across the land, but all the parts adjacent 
thereto. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
{By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D. D.) 

THE history of no denomination would be complete 
unless at least one chapter were devoted to its 
work for the young people. Yet how can the efforts 
of three centuries in this all-important field of Christian 
nurture be condensed into five thousand words ? It is 
a trite saying that this is "the young people's century," 
and doubtless it is true that In the religious world far 
more has been done of late for them and by them than 
ever before. The last quarter of a century will doubt- 
less be recognized as the era of their especial activity 
in church life. 

Yet it must not be supposed that the church has 
been indifferent to her children during all these 
years, or has cared little for their spiritual welfare. 
To be sure, she sometimes seems to have acted the 
part of the traditional stepmother rather than of the 
loving parent. She has sometimes repressed and 
sought to subdue them rather than to encourage and 
set them at work. She has made too much of the old 
adage that "Children should be seen and not heard," 
and yet there has never been a year In the history of 
Congregationalism, probably not a year in the history 
of the Christian Church, in which there have not been 
some efforts made to follow out the command of 
Him who said, "Feed my lambs." 

446 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 447 

We know how much was made by our Puritan ances- 
tors of parental care and training for God, of cate- 
chetical instruction, of attendance upon the services of 
the sanctuary. Undoubtedly the tithing man figured 
more prominently than the Sunday-school concert in 
those days; there was more of ''go" than of ''come" ; 
nevertheless all these efforts show the place that 
Christian training had in the hearts of our ancestors, 
and the faults of this training were rather the stern 
faults of the age than any idiosyncrasy of Congrega- 
tionalism. 

The great distinction between the former methods 
of training and the more modern methods is that in 
the olden days everything was done for the children 
and youth. In these days it is not much of an ex- 
aggeration to say that everything is done by them. 
In former times the little pitchers were set conveniently 
under the droppings of the sanctuary, where they could 
be filled from time to time with the water of life. 
To-day, perhaps, no less effort is made to fill the little 
pitchers than formerly, but much more is expected of 
them. They are to give of their stores to those who 
have not like privileges. They are taught to work 
and pray and sing for Jesus, and are given to under- 
stand in every way that the great commission, '* Go ye 
into all the world," is for them as well as for their 
fathers and mothers. 

Yet it must not be supposed that even in ancient 
days young Christians themselves were altogether 
idle. To be sure, they were not greatly encouraged to 
work. The church concerned itself very little with 
providing channels for their activities and often frowned 
upon their callow attempts at service, but even amid 



448 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

all these discouraging surroundings their life did 
express itself. 

The spiritual life cannot be altogether repressed. 
Energy must find vent in action. It is a curious 
fact in the early history of Congregationalism that, 
a^ far back as the middle of the eighteenth century, 
there were many young people's associations which 
seem in their scope and purpose to be marvelously 
like the societies of Christian Endeavor of modern 
days. 

These associations appear to have sprung up in 
consequence of the great revival of religion which 
followed the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and in 
many a Congregational church the young people, 
chiefly the young men, seem to have banded them- 
selves together for a weekly prayer meeting, for 
mutual oversight and counsel and reproof and for 
the performance of any service which might be 
demanded of them. The pledge, the consecration 
meeting and the lookout committee oT the modern 
young people's society seem to have been fore- 
shadowed in these early associations, though it was 
a number of years after the establishment of Chris- 
tian Endeavor societies that the coincidence was 
first noticed. 

One of these associations which existed at Lexing- 
ton, Mass., about the year 1757, declares in its 
preamble as follows : 

*' We whose Names are underwritten, having by the 
grace of God been awakened in our youth to a 
serious Concern about the things of our everlasting 
Peace and to an earnest desire suitably and reli- 
giously to remember our Creator in the days of our 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 449 

Youth and to give ourselves unto the service of 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, do covenant 
and agree together and with an Humble dependence 
upon Divine grace do solemnly promise that we will 
not allow ourselves in the Practice of any known sin 
or in the Omission of any known Duty, and for an 
assistance in the service of God and in the great 
Design of early Religion, and for the preventing and 
escaping the Snayres and Temptations which Young 
People do frequently fall into in evil Company, we 
do associate ourselves for the religious Observ- 
ance of the Following Orders, namely : 

'' I St. The Prayer meeting. 

'* 2d. Conditions and methods of membership. 

" 3d. Watch care and fellowship. 

*'4th. Lookout and reproof. 

''5th. Apostasy and expulsion." 

In the somewhat stilted phrase of the olden time 
we can here discern the true spirit of the young 
disciple. The earnest seriousness of purpose, the 
devotion and zeal which have been touched by the 
spirit of Christ, were the same then as now. If I 
am not mistaken, the first constitution, which the 
other associations seem to have copied (a kind of 
model constitution), was drawn up by Jonathan 
Edwards himself, so that modern forms of young 
people's work have the support of eminent theological 
authority as well as of antiquity. But apparently 
these associations were short-lived and had little 
effect upon the life of the churches, though very 
largely helpful doubtless to the individuals who com- 
posed them. 

The churches were not ready for innovations. The 



450 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Spirit of the times feared .the ascendency of young 
people, and, apparently, for lack of sympathy and affec- 
tionate interest, these early associations were allowed 
to die and have scarcely left a name behind them. It 
is sometimes said by theoretical objectors that young- 
people's societies are hothouses forcing Christian 
growth, and that an unnatural religious life is the 
result. All experience disproves this idea, but evi- 
dently in the olden church there was little of the hot- 
house element. They were veritable ice houses in 
which the tender plants were soon nipped and the 
associations of earnest youth were speedily frozen out. 

A score of years after the brief life and untimely 
death of this effort among the youth of our churches 
the Sunday school -of Robert Raikes, which seems to 
have been the progenitor of modern schools, was 
established at Gloucester, England, in 1780. 

This movement, too, had to make its way toilsomely 
for the most part in an unbelieving if not a hostile 
church. As has been truly said, " The authorized and 
official teachers of the church feared the effect of this 
unauthorized and unofficial teachlngf. This was true 
both in England and in this country. Then came a 
time when it was tolerated, though not much more 
than tolerated. In the church, when many pastors 
looked upon it with suspicion and granted it a place 
with apprehension. Still, it had taken too strong a 
hold upon the mass of the people to be refused." 

The early history of Sunday schools in Congrega- 
tional churches was very much the same as in other 
denominations. Here and there were those who wel- 
comed the new auxiliary with open arms, but for the 
most part it had to win its way and prove by its own 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 45 1 

undoubted value Its inherent right to exist. Dim 
traditions which may be somewhat apocryphal have 
come down from the early part of this century to tlie 
effect that In one Congregational church a day of 
fasting and prayer was called In order to stem this new 
heresy, and to deplore the effects of this unofficial 
teaching. This tradition shows at least the spirit of 
the times. 

But It was not for long that our churches held this 
attitude, for as early as 1816 Sunda3^-school unions 
were formed In New York and Boston In which Con- 
gregatlonallsts had prominent part, while in 1832 a 
distinctive denominational society was formed. 

An Important publishing business was the natural 
outgrowth of the Sunday-school Society, and during Its 
early years it Issued many valuable books for Sunda}'- 
school libraries, question books and singing books as 
well. 

In 1864 a marriage was happily completed between 
the " Doctrinal Tract and Book Society," whose name 
In the meantime had been changed to " Congrega- 
tional Board of Publication," and the " Massachusetts 
Sabbath-school Society," and then the work which is 
now carried on so successfully under the somewhat 
cumbrous name of the " Congregational Sunday-school 
and Publishing Society" (which baptismal name, by 
the way, was not given to the organization until 1883) 
may be said fairly to have begun. 

Great Impetus came to the work when Rev. A. E. 
Dunning in 1880 was chosen Sunday-school secretary, 
and from that day to this the work has gone on with 
constantly increasing momentum. In 1883 the jubilee 
year of the Sunday-school Society was happily cele- 



452 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

brated by a great increase of its missionary activities. 
Sunday-school missionaries or superintendents began 
to be employed whose duty it is ** to improve the con- 
ditions of existing Sunday schools, to plant Sunday 
schools in places where there is promise of the organi- 
zation of Congregational churches, to plant mission 
schools in neighborhoods where they can be cared for 
by Congregational churches and to reorganize Sunday 
schools in places where they have been abandoned 
by churches and where churches themselves have 
died out." 

There are now twenty superintendents and as many 
more missionaries in the field, and the spiritual results 
of this work have been laree and we believe abidinor. 
Forty-five hundred Sunday-schools have been organ- 
ized in a little more than a decade, into which were 
brought at the beginning two hundred thousand 
persons, and four hundred and fifty Congrega- 
tional churches have been traced directly to the 
Sunday schools thus organized out of which they 
sprung. 

Many of these churches doubtless would have been 
formed in any event, but many more of them would never 
have come into existence had it not been for the fos- 
tering care of this admirable organization. An annual 
children's Sunday has become a generally recognized 
institution. The Home Department, first introduced 
by Dr. W. A. Duncan, field secretary of the society, 
has been extensively adopted, not only in this but in 
other countries. New methods for the instruction of 
teachers have become popular. In many ways a great 
beneficent impulse has been given to the denomination 
by the work of this society. We can give the figures, 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 



453 



but the spiritual results, patent as they are even to the 
eye of a casual observer, will be found fully recorded 
only in the Lamb's Book of Life. 

To-day the work, under the care of the efficient 
secretary, Rev. George M. Boynton, D. D., is carried 
on with the viofor 



and success which 
has lonof charac- 
terized it, and the 
future of the Con- 
gregational Sun- 
day-school and 
Publishing Soci- 
ety is full of the 
largest promise. 

Even a very 
hasty review of 
the Sunday-school 
work of the de- 
nomination would 
not be complete 
without callinof to 
mind the name 
of Asa Bullard, 
whose venerable 
form and white 

locks for so many years impressed themselves upon 
youthful Congregationalists in all parts of the land 
as the very incarnation of Christian gentleness and 
vivacity. For fifty-four years, from 1834 to 1888, he 
was connected with the society, edited its books and 
its well-known paper. The Wellspring, made long 
journeys in the interest of the society, visited the 




REV. ASA BULLARD. 



454 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

schools and left behind him everywhere the bene- 
diction of a sweet and gracious spirit. 

The Sunday-school publications of this organization 
have taken a high rank, its imprint alone guaranteeing 
their excellence, while its lesson helps and other 
periodicals which are used directly* in the work of the 
Sunday school have obtained an enormous circulation, 
having gone beyond six hundred and fifty thousand 
copies already, in spite of the numerous rivals, many 
of them of exceptional excellence, which are found in 
this field of literature. 

So far our chapter has related largely to the work 
that has been done for the children and youth of our 
Congregational churches. Of late years another large 
field of effort has been developed, namely, the work 
v/hich the young men and maidens, the boys and girls, 
are doing for the church and for all its activities, and 
thus indirectly for their own spiritual advancement. 

More or less spasmodic and futile efforts have been 
made by the young people of our churches for many 
years in various directions. More often these have 
taken a literary or social turn, and have had their value 
doubtless in bringing young people of the church 
together, making them acquainted one with another 
and interesting them to some extent in the church 
to which their parents belong. But these young 
people's sociables and literary societies and debat- 
ing clubs seem to possess little vitality and to have 
very feeble " staying powers." Interest soon wanes 
and some other plans must be devised by the often 
anxious and troubled pastor. 

Of far more value were the old-fashioned young 
people's prayer meetings which have long existed in 



THE STORY OF THP: YOUNG PEOPLE. 455 

many churches, and which attracted to themselves the 
most devout and mature of the older young people of 
the church. Their great defect seemed to be the 
limited number who attended them, and their tendency 
to drift Into the hands of a few of the better educated 
and the more accomplished young people who could 
" talk well In meeting," and thus the bane of all prayer 
meetings seemed especially to afflict the young peo- 
ple's meeting, until after a few years it was often a 
"young people's meeting" only by courtesy. Little 
was accomplished by these meetings for the great 
masses of young men and women and boys and girls 
who could not be reckoned among the experienced or 
the glib. 

This same tendency to drift Into the hands of a few 
was shown also In the young people's missionary organ- 
izations of the church which within the last quarter of 
a century have sprung up so numerously all over the 
land, especially In connection with the work of foreign 
missions. These mission circles have kindled the 
missionary spirit and enthusiasm in the hearts of thou- 
sands who otherwise would have been unresponsive to 
the holy claim. But these circles have been confined 
largely to the more devout and earnest among the 
young women of the church. The fire of missionary 
enthusiasm has not kindled as it should the hearts of 
all the young men and women. 

Still these mission circles have done great good, 
not only because they have interested their members 
In the work of spreading the gospel, but still more 
because they have demonstrated the fact that there is 
appropriate and important work in every church for 
young people to do which none others can do so 



456 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

well. This fact, which has gradually been dawning 
upon the consciousness of the church for many years, 
has found its fullest expression in the Young People's 
Society of Christian Endeavor. 

For this movement the 3^oung people's prayer meet- 
ing, the mission circle, the old-fashioned lyceum or 
debating society and other forms of activity among the 
young people have long been preparing the way. It 
is rooted in the idea that the young men and maidens 
ought to do something for the church and should not 
expect the church to do everything for them. It is 
founded on the principle that service, and not enter- 
tainment or mere instructioUy is necessary to the 
development of Christian character. It proceeds 
Upon the assumption that the only way to grapple the 
hearts of the young people to the heart of the church 
with hooks of steel is to give them something to do in 
the church and for the church, and to lead them to 
realize that they are integral parts of the particular 
branch of the church of Christ to which tliey belong, 
and that its work will not be fully done unless they 
as well as their fathers and grandfathers do their 
part of it. 

In the year 1881 In the Williston Congregational 
Church of Portland, Me., on the second day of Feb- 
ruary, the first Young People's Society of Christian 
Endeavor was formed, and it was formed simply to 
meet the needs of one local church, without any 
thought that the idea would be used by Providence 
in tens of thousands of other churches. It was the 
outgrowth in part of some of these earlier ideas of 
Christian nurture which have already been alluded to 
in this chapter. 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 457 

The young people's prayer meeting had long existed 
in this church, but it was of the spasmodic variety 
that wilted under the heat of summer, was fre- 
quently washed away, for the time being, by the rains 
of autumn and was blockaded by the snows of winter. 
Mission circles had also been a vigorous element in 
the life of the young people of this church, and quite a 
number of those who met together to form the first 
Endeavor society belonged to the *' Mizpah Mission 
Circle," which, under the care of the pastor's wife, reg- 
ularly met at the parsonage. A literary society and 
young people's debating club had also existed in this 
church, but none of these agencies seemed to accom- 
plish all that was necessary for the spiritual growth 
and training of the young disciples, and when in the 
winter of 1881 a new company of young converts were 
about to be received into the church it was felt most 
seriously that something must be done to prevent 
these timid and inexperienced young disciples from 
folding their hands, slipping into a comfortable back 
scat in the church and becoming mere ciphers, as too 
many of their young companions who had previously 
joined the church had become. 

The feeling was general, not only in this church but 
in many others, that there was a missing link which as 
yet had been unsupplied, that it was scarcely safe to 
introduce children and youth to the responsibilities of 
church membership under the old regime, and that 
since the first few weeks of the Christian life decided 
its future character so largely, some new plan must be 
devised to prevent the young Christian from taking on 
at the beginning a lazy, indifferent and shamefaced 
type of religious character. 



458 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

The Society of Christian Endeavor was the outcome 
of these conditions and this greatly felt need. It set 
itself to work to solve these problems in three ways : 

First, by making very much of the idea of frequent 
outspoken confession of Christ. To this end the 
pledge which ever since has been the distinctive char- 
acteristic of the movement was adopted. By this 
pledge every member promises to make it the rule of 
his life not only to remember his private devotions 
daily, not only to support his own church loyally, but 
also to attend and take some part in each weekly young 
people's prayer meeting. Not very much is demanded. 
No elaborate address or carefully prepared harangue. 
Such participation is very far from the Christian 
Endeavor idea. Simply some word indicating loyalty 
to the Lord Jesus Christ is expected. The shortest 
verse of Scripture, the most stammering and hesitating 
word of testimony, a brief quotation from a religious 
author, any participation of this sort fulfills all the 
requirements and accomplishes the great task of 
buttressing the young soul with the strength of a 
mighty purpose to live for Christ, whose love is con- 
tinually confessed. 

But the prayer-meeting pledge will not always en- 
force itself. In every church there are some careless 
young souls that need constantly to be reminded of 
their duties, and so the Lookout committee and 
Prayer-meeting committee, whose duty it is to see 
that the pledge is observed, were inaugurated in the 
first society, and have been indispensable parts of 
every Christian Endeavor society that has ever since 
been formed. 

The second feature of this movement is the con- 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 459 

secration meeting, In which once every month the 
names of all the members are called and each one is 
faced with the questions, ''Where am I standing in 
relation to Christ?" ''What is my purpose for the 
future ?" 

Almost as essential as the prayer-meeting pledge has 
been found this monthly covenant service, and no one 
thing has done more to give to the movement a spirit- 
ual purpose and to show to the members that nothing 
can take the place of unswerving loyalty to their 
Master. 

The third element upon which the Christian En- 
deavor society largely insists is that of service in 
building up the symmetrical Christian character. Its 
ideal is to give everyone something to do for Christ 
and the church. No one is so young, inexperienced or 
bashful that he will not find himself sooner or later upon 
some committee on which it is his special and partic- 
ular business to work in some definite way for Christ. 
*'To every man his work," is the motto of the Christian 
Endeavor society, and it has sought to put the most 
generic meaning into the word "man," so as to include 
every woman and every boy and every girl who has 
taken the Christian Endeavor pledge. It has sought 
in this way to solve the problem of the unemployed, a 
problem which Is quite as pressing in the religious as 
in the Industrial world. 

It Is easy for the minister, the deacons and the Sun- 
day-school superintendents and a few of the leading 
men and women In every church to find enough to do, 
but to find appropriate work for the rank and file Is a 
very different thing. The Christian Endeavor society 
has seriously set itself to work to solve this great prob- 



460 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

lem, and not only the Lookout committee and the 
Prayer-meeting committee, which have already been 
mentioned, but the Social, the Missionary, the 
Sunday-school, Flower and Music committees, the 
Good Literature, Vestibule and Sunshine committees 
and many others which might be named are all the 
outgrowth of this idea to give to everyone something 
to do. 

Of late years this idea of service has taken a still 
wider sweep, and many of the local unions of Christian 
Endeavor are making vigorous efforts to awaken their 
members and young people generally to the claims of 
good citizenship, the mighty interests of extending the 
kingdom of God in other lands, work for the sailors 
and soldiers, for the life-saving stations and light- 
house inmates, for policemen, traveling men, firemen 
and a multitude of other classes who can be helped by 
the earnest words and generous deeds of devoted young 
disciples. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are con- 
tributed every year by the Christian Endeavor societies 
through their own denominational missionary boards, 
and multitudes of young people have of late adopted 
the plan of giving at least one-tenth of their income 
for the advancement of the kingdom. 

Many of those who formed the first Society of 
Christian Endeavor w^ere boys and girls who would 
now be formed Into a Junior Society. These boys 
and girls had been trained In a pastor's class and 
several months previous to the formation of this 
society had taken the pledge which indicated that 
they had consciously begun the Christian life, the 
same form of words which now forms the first 
part of the Junior pledge. But the first distinctive 



i^-^sftt^ 




462 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Junior Endeavor Society was formed In the Congrega- 
tional church of Tabor, la., of which the Rev. J. W. 
Cowan is the faithful pastor. 

Of late years this effort for the children has kept 
pace with the endeavors of the older young people. 
Intermediate societies. Senior societies of Christian 
Endeavor whose chief business it is to apply the 
Christian Endeavor principles to the weekly prayer 
meeting of the church, and Mothers' societies in which 
devout mothers band themselves together to pray for 
and help along the children in the Junior societies have 
sprung up, and there are in all the world between thirty 
and forty thousand of these organizations, numbering 
two millions of members, while the ranks are being 
recruited at the rate of two or three hundred thousand 
new members every year. 

Fully six thousand of these societies, with nearly 
three hundred thousand members, are found in Con- 
gregational churches In both hemispheres. Very much 
the larger number are found In America, though the 
growth of the movement in both England and Aus- 
tralia during the last twelve months has been almost 
as rapid as in the land of its birth. 

The conventions and local union meetings of these 
societies are among the most remarkable features of 
the movement. The enthusiasm, the numbers that 
attend and the consecrated spirit shown surpass the 
belief of those who are not familiar with such gather- 
ings. At one of these conventions not less than thirty 
thousand young people came together, most of them 
from a considerable distance, with the one purpose of 
enjoying the spiritual advantages of such a gathering. 
Christian Endeavor conventions in England and 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 463 

Australia, and even in some of the missionary lands, are 
taking on the same features of enthusiastic, consecrated, 
intelligent zeal for the Master which have been so con- 
spicuous in the American conventions. 

Congregationalists have always had a warm place in 
their hearts for this movement. With but very few 
exceptions every church of our order in America has 
such a society. The first article describing the move- 
ment was published in August, 1881, in the Congrega- 
tionalist, under the title *' What One Church is Trying 
to do for its Young People." As was natural, the 
second society was also formed in a Congregational 
church, the North Church of Newburyport, Mass. 
But soon other denominations found that there was 
something for them also in these same ideas of 
Christian nurture, and from the beginning the thought 
of Christian fellowship and interdenominational 
brotherhood has been woven into the very fabric of 
the Christian Endeavor societies. Loyalty to Christ 
and the local church and fellowship with all those who 
love Him, have been the two distinctive strands in the 
warp and woof of the Christian Endeavor movement. 

Of late years international fellowship has been added 
to interdenominational fellowship, and it is not too much 
to believe, in the good providence of God, that young 
Christians of different nationalities as well as of dif- 
ferent denominations may be banded together for an 
aggressive crusade against all unrighteousness and for 
the building up of the kingdom of God such as the 
world has never yet seen. 

The controlling hand of Providence is to be grate- 
fully and gladly acknowledged in all this work, It is 
no human invention or man-made device. The times 



4^4 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



were ready for It. Ten thousand pastors were feeling- 
after some such plan for the training of young Chris- 
tians. Such a movement was bound to come to 
develop the strength and vigor of young Christian 
manhood and womanhood and turn them into channels 
of devoted allegiance to the Church of Christ. If the 



./y^/\f 




WELLESLEY COLLEGE, WELLESLEY, MASS, 



first society had not been formed in Williston Church 
when it was, doubtless a very few months would have 
seen a similar development in some other field, for 
when the full time has come God's purposes are never 
very long delayed. In one or two denominations, but 
only in one or two, the young people's movement has 
taken a strictly denominational form. 

Within the last ^wq years the Boys' Brigade, an insti- 
tution imported in the first place from Scotland, has 
found its way into a number of our churches. Its great 
object is to promote soldierly fidelity and discipline 



THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 465 

among the boys, and it is hoped, under the guise of 
miHtary training, to bring recruits into the army of the 
Captain of our Salvation, and to make them obedient 
and loyal soldiers. 

In some of our churches, too, the Brotherhood of 
Andrew and Philip has found a sympathetic home. 
This is an effort to set young men at work for young 
men, especially to win the degraded and outcast by the 
personal influence of those who have been touched by 
Christ's spirit. It is a "win-one" society, whose possi- 
bilities are in many places large. So far it is confined 
chiefly to the larger churches, especially the institu- 
tional churches, where a considerable body of young 
men can be brought together. But in other and 
smaller churches it may be and is a branch of the 
Christian Endeavor Society, a Brotherhood committee 
of that organization being formed where any number 
of young men, from five to fifty, may be given the task 
of bringing their companions to Christ and His service. 
The originator of this movement, Rev. Rufus W. 
Miller of the German Reformed Church, heartily ap- 
proves of this combination, which saves a multiplica- 
tion of organizations, and at the same time accom- 
plishes the work which the Brotherhood is set to do. 

As yet we seem to be at the very threshold of young 
people's work. What shall the future bring forth ? 
Who is wise enough to predict what the twentieth 
century has in store for the Church of God through 
the agency of these young disciples? How may the 
church not enlarge her boundaries with these vigorous 
and joyous young workmen laboring with all the 
energy of youth upon the walls of Zion ? What may 
not the Sunday school of the future become ? Who 



466 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

can predict the possibilities of the rejuvenated prayer 
meeting ? Who will set any limits to the missionary 
activities and the extension of the kingdom the world 
around when the years have had a chance fully to 
develop the mightily growing enthusiasm of these 
young Christians for the extension of their Master's 
kingdom ? 

How may we not hope that our politics may be puri- 
fied, our municipal governments purged, the whole 
tone of our State and national issues raised from the 
low plane of partisan controversy to the sunlit table- 
lands of patriotic principles ? What may not be the 
joy of angels and men when, partially at least, through 
the activities and loving fellowship of Christ's young 
disciples, sectarian wranglings shall cease, wasteful 
rivalries which have disgraced the Protestant Church 
in the past shall be no more, and His own prayer shall 
be answered, " That they all may be one as Thou, 
Father, art in Me and I in Thee"? 



^ 




HENRY MARTYN DEXTER, D. D., LL. D. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 
{By Rev. Howard A. Bridgman.) 

WHAT place do the writings of Congregationalists 
occupy in the world's literature ? How large and 
of what character is the literature pertaining to Con- 
gregationalism, and what contributions have members 
of this denomination made through the printed page to 
the different realms of human thought? If it were 
possible to apportion all the products of the press to 
their various authors it would be found, we think, that 
in proportion to their numbers Congregationalists have 
borne a worthy part in adding to the shelves of the 
public and private libraries of Christendom ; or if the 
classification were made on the basis of assigning to 
each denomination the literature connected w^th its 
origin, growth and extension, the share that would fall 
to the Congregational body would doubtless compare 
favorably both in size and quality with that of any of 
the leading branches of the church of Christ. 

While it is true on the one hand that Congregation- 
alism has created a literature, it is equally true that 
this literature has in turn fostered and developed Con- 
gregationalism. There has been, ever since the start, 
among men of our polity an impulse toward expressing 
their faith in an enduring form, and every creditable 
publication has reacted favorably upon the denomina- 
tional life. There was not, to be sure, much premedi- 

467 



468 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

tation in the earlier, and indeed in many of the later, 
contributions to Congregational literature. They were 
called forth by existing circumstances and their authors 
in most cases probably put them forth regardless of the 
final judgment that would be passed upon them. But 
having once gained the imperishability which type 
confers they have combined to make a literature large, 
varied and important. 

From the nature of our polity it was to be expected 
that pamphlets and books would be needed to bring 
home to the minds of men an understanding of it. 
Congregationalism in the latter half of the sixteenth 
century was a new thing in the world. It needed to be 
explained and defended. Its scriptural basis must be 
set forth. Indeed before it came to have any standing 
place in the world it was obliged, as all reforms are, to 
justify its own existence. How effectual in this direc- 
tion were the half dozen Martin Mar-prelate tracts, put 
forth as early as 1589, has been shown elsewhere in 
this book. Thirty years before these cutting pamphlets 
were issued a French writer, Morelli, had expounded 
the Congregational way as he saw it, and though his 
books were burned it was impossible to reduce to ashes 
their influence. Robert Browne, in his turn, from his 
retreat in Zealand, aided by his friend Harrison, set 
forth the principles of Congregationalism in perhaps 
six or eight publications, three of which are now accessi- 
ble. Greenwood and Barrowe, too, were writers, and 
perhaps a dozen works are to be credited to them. 
The scholarly Henry Ainsworth also produced a score 
or more of publications, not all of them, however, 
treatises on polity, for he was a student of the Bible 
and wrote expositions of the sacred text. 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 469 

As Congregationalism developed, as its adherents 
multiplied, as the field of its operations enlarged, as 
new conditions arose, it is obvious that there would be 
abundant reason for increasinor the number of books 
and pamphlets. There were in every generation wise 
men who endeavored to explain and vindicate the 
principles of Congregationalism and apply them to 
specific cases. Thus it has come about that we have a 
wealth of strictly technical literature bearing upon the 
Congregational polity, in which precedents are cited, 
decisions made, platforms laid down, opponents chal- 
lenged and confuted. In this glorious galaxy of Con- 
gregational defenders shine such illustrious names as 
John Goodwin, John Owen, John Robinson, Thomas 
Hooker, Ralph Wardlaw, John Locke, Robert 
Vaughan ; and passing to America, John Cotton, John 
Davenport, the Mathers, Enoch Pond, Leonard Bacon, 
A. Hastings Ross, William W. Patton, Joseph E. Roy, 
Henry M. Dexter, Samuel N. Jackson, Alonzo H. 
Quint, not to speak of scores of others hardly less 
worthy of mention, whose researches in particular 
provinces of investigation have contributed to a better 
understanding of the faith and polity in which we 
glory. 

But it is not contributions respecting our polity 
which alone make up the vast library of which we are 
speaking. Theology has been a mighty factor in 
swelling the stream of literature. The conflicts of the 
earlier and later theologians of the denomination have 
given rise to numerous publications, many of which 
now sleep their last sleep In the dusty oblivion of un- 
frequented alcoves, but which in their day were care- 
fully read and which are valuable to us as landmarks 



470 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and monuments of a past out of which we never can 
fail to gain instruction. Our early New England 
history abounds in such literature. It used to be the 
custom for ministers, in the days before reviews and 
newspapers, to issue their discourses and their treatises 
on their own responsibility and at their own charges. 
Even after periodicals began to multiply there was still 
room for controversial pamphlets. The rise of Uni- 
tarianism stimulated the production of such writings. 
One minister would put forth a brochure and another 
would reply. This Reply would be met by an Answer, 
but not to be outwitted the doughty antagonist would 

respond with '' Remarks on Dr. 's Answer." The 

annual sermon preached before the Massachusetts 
Convention of Ministers usually found its way into 
print and was one of the important documents of the 
year. Meanwhile another influence was at work in- 
creasing the supply of literature. Nearly one hun- 
d*red and fifty years ago Jonathan Edwards, narrating 
his remarkable religious experience, wrore : " I used 
to be eager to read public news-letters, mainly for 
that end, to see if I could not find some news favorable 
to the interests of religion in the world." This desire 
for intelligence in regard to the spread of Christ's 
kingdom at home and abroad led to an increasing use 
of the printing press for the purpose of disseminating 
such information. So we find occasional publications 
devoted chiefly to news, and harbingers of the modern 
newspaper. Such was the Christian History, pub-- 
lished as early as 1743 by Thomas Prince, son of the 
pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, appearing 
weekly for a period of two years. Over a century 
before that date, In 1639, the first printing office in 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 



4; I 



America had been established In the city of Cambridge, 
and its first three publications were the '* The Free- 
man's Oath," " Pierce's Almanac," and the celebrated 
'* Bay Psalm Book," which went through seventy edi- 
tions In Boston, London and Edinburgh. There were 




LIBRARY, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, HANOVER, N. H. (/<Z^<f 2^5). 

also occasional English reprints, Baxter and Bunyan 
being the chief favorites, but it was not until the dawn 
of the nineteenth century that the magazine and news- 
paper era in American literature can be said fairly to 
have begun. It is interesting to see that this forward 
step was due to the combined working of the three 
forces of which we have spoken. The ecclesiastical, 
the theological and the missionary impulse each 
sought expression and each was discernible in the 
contents of the publications which date from the first 



472 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

quarter of this century. In the prospectuses of these 
magazines there is marked uniformity in the statement 
of the purpose in view. Their founders evidently in- 
tended to glean from these three main fields the 
materials for their publications, though naturally a dif- 
ference is noticeable in the proportion in which the 
elements were mixed, due probably in part to the vary- 
ing tastes of the editor and in part to limitations 
imposed by a specific title. The century had hardly 
drawn its first breaths when the Connecticut Evangel- 
ical Magazine appeared in 1800, its place of publication 
being Hartford, while the Massachttsetts Missionary 
Magazine was on the field only two years later, united 
in 1808 with the Panoplist, which had then been run- 
ning three years. From 181 8 on to 1820 the magazine 
was known as the Panoplist and Missionary Herald, 
and since the latter date the single title Missionary 
Herald has been used to designate a publication 
which, in the judgment of the best informed persons 
on both sides of the water, is in the very front rank of 
journals of its class. The Panoplist did valiant 
service at the time of the Unitarian dissension, and its 
pages bear abundant evidence of the questions that 
were shaking the churches to their foundations during 
the second decade of this century. Other New Eng- 
land States besides Massachusetts and Connecticut 
were ambitious to have periodicals of their own. New 
Hampshire's first venture was the Piscataqua Evan- 
gelical Magazine, published at Portsmouth, January, 
1805, by an association of ministers. The next candi- 
date for patronage was the Religious Repository, whose 
place of publication was Concord, the State Home 
Missionary Society assuming responsibility for it. 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 473 

Vermont's venture in this line was known as the 
Adviser, or the Vermont Evangelical Magazine, 
and the dates 1809 to 181 8 bounded its life. Re- 
turning to Boston, we note next the Spirit of the 
Pilgrims, which came into being in 1828. It was 
born out of the Unitarian controversy and was de- 
signed to counteract the influence of the Unitarian 
publications known as the Christian Disciple, begun 
in 18 13, and the Christian Examiner, begun in 1824. 
It was felt that the Orthodox position was not having 
sufficient vindication through the press. "■ We must 
be read," said the aggressive and fertile Lyman Beecher, 
and in that sentence he stated a truth which advocates 
of good causes have over and over again realized. 

The periodical which next deserves mention is 
one with which many persons living are familiar, the 
Congregational Quarterly. This grew out of a con- 
versation which the late Dr. Dexter and Dr. Quint 
had at a council, when the former suggested that it 
would be desirable to preserve in some periodical 
records of important councils, noteworthy ecclesiastical 
precedents and other matters of interest to the denom- 
ination. They associated with themselves in this 
undertaking Dr. Joseph S. Clark. With their original 
idea was incorporated another which had not found 
expression in any of the previous denominational 
magazines, namely, the insertion of annual statistics 
concerning the denomination. As early as 1846 there 
had been efforts to gather such statistics, and three or 
four little almanacs, about the size of an ordinary 
primer, were issued in the years 1846 to 1848. One 
of them bears the name of Dorus Clark, a Boston 
minister, as compiler, and another is credited to Par- 



474 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

sons Cooke of Lynn. But there had been no sys- 
tematic attempt to gather the figures relating to the 
denomination until 1854, when Rev. Timothy Atkinson, 
and after him Dr. I. P. Langworthy, as secretaries of 
the American Congregational Union, collected for it 
for four or five successive years statistics conveying 
some approximate idea of the extent and size of the 
denomination. It was felt by both Drs. Dexter and 
Quint that a careful and semi-ofificial census would be 
a proper feature in the quarterly which they had in 
mind; and beginning in i860, the second year of its 
life, these statistics were presented, having been col- 
lected by Dr. Quint upon a thoroughly matured plan, 
covering the whole country and enlisting special secre- 
taries in each State. The items called for were at 
once very much enlarged in number. Dr. Quint con- 
tinued that work until 1883, when his secretaryship of 
the National Council terminated, completing twenty- 
five years of service, with a temporary interruption 
occasioned by his absence during the war, The 
Quarterly lived until the end of 1878, though the 
control of it passed in time from the hands of the 
three original proprietors, and from Dr. Langworthy 
and Mr. Samuel Burnham, who came later into the 
partnership, to Rev. Christopher Cushing, D. D., who 
was its last owner and editor. The twenty volumes 
of the Quarterly include very important articles of a 
historical, ecclesiastical and practical nature, and a 
series of valuable engraved portraits. Toward the 
end of its existence it grew somewhat more contro- 
versial. Its circulation in its palmiest days was not 
far from two thousand copies, but declined in the later 
years of its existence. One reason for its subsidence 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 475 

was the decision of the National Council In 1877 to 
Issue a Year Book, which appeared first in 1879 under 
the editorship of Dr. Quint, possessing then substan- 
tially the same features which characterize It now. 
Since 1883 It has been prepared by Rev. H. A. 
Hazen, D. D. Our English brethren were In the 
field with a Year Book considerably before us, their 
first Issue bearing the date of 1846, though far 
more meager In Its statistical showing than ours. 
Australian as well Canadian Congregatlonallsts now 
publish a Year Book, and our brethren in Ireland 
and in Scotland have occasionally issued similar 
publications. 

To refer to a few other periodicals closely linked to 
the denomination the Bibliotheca Sacra merits men- 
tion as an Influential exponent of Congregational 
thought. It was begun in Andover in 1844. I^ 1884 
it was removed to Oberlln, where It continues to be 
published under the editorship of Dr. G. Frederick 
Wright and able associates. At the time that the Biblio- 
theca was removed to Oberlln the faculty of Andover 
began the Andover Review. It continued until 1893. 
Its pages reflect the various phases of recent contro- 
versies due to the espousal by Andover of the cause of 
progressive Orthodoxy. But aside from theological 
discussions, the Review^ while it lasted, presented 
fresh and forcible contributions upon literary and 
sociological topics. Yale College has had its organ 
since 1843, known until 1892 as the New Englaiider, 
when it adopted the name of the' Yale Review. The 
erudite William M. Kingsley was for a time Its editor- 
in-chief. Hartford Seminary started in 1890 the Hart- 
ford Seminary Record, which continues to print valua- 



476 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ble information in regard to that institution. We 
should go too far afield to trace the influence of the 
Congregational leaven in other and more secular realms 
of journalism. It should not be forgotten that the 
editor of the Review of Reviews y Mr. Albert Shaw, is 
a Congregationalist, and that the Youth's Companion 
owes a large portion of its prosperity and success to 
the late Francis G. Pratt, Jr., who came of honored 
Congregational stock. 

The history of Congregational periodicals in Eng- 
land dates from 1818, when the Congregational Maga- 
zine was founded. It led a somewhat precarious exist- 
ence until 1844, when the Christian Witness appeared, 
under the sanction of the Congregational Union of 
England and Wales. It stood squarely for the dissent- 
ing churches. Its profits were applied to the relief of 
aged ministers, and its circulation, for a number of 
years, averaged over thirty-three thousand a month. 
It was discontinued in 1871. Contemporaneous with 
and outliving the Christian Witness vj 3.^ \\\e British 
Quarterly Review, started February i, 1845, and con- 
tinuing until 1886. In January, 1872, a somewhat more 
popular and virile periodical was started, called the 
Congregationalist, and with its editing such distin- 
guished names as Dr. R. W. Dale and Rev. J. Guinness 
Rogers are associated. Succeeding to it, and incorpo- 
rating also with itself the British Quarterly Review, 
came the Congregational Review, which first saw the 
light in January, 1887, and for four years exercised 
a wholesome influence upon the English churches. 
Since it was discontinued, in January, 1891, our brethren 
across the sea have sustained no monthly, but in the field 
of religious weeklies they are well represented in the 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 477 

Independent and Nonconformist, xvo^N wndi^x the editor- 
ship of Rev. D. Burford Hooke. 

The appearance of the Sunday school and its recog- 
nition, after years of doubt, as a legitimate part of the 
church gave rise in time to a special kind of literature 
devoted to advancing the interests of this right arm of 
the church. The Sunday-school Treasury, published 
by the American Sunday-school Union in July, 1828, 
was the first in the field, the Sunday-school Visitor, 
under Congregational auspices, coming into being in 
1833. The dear old Wellspring, which nearly two 
generations of children have now enjoyed, dates from 
1844. -^^ allusion need only be made to the flood of 
Sunday-school question books, quarterlies, helps, and 
concert exercises, for which, in its later years, the denom- 
ination is indebted to the Congregational Sunday- 
school and Publishing Society. The circulation of its 
quarterlies alone to-day considerably exceeds a half 
million copies. 

We pass now to a distinct, though related, sphere of 
Congregational literature — that of the religious news- 
paper. The product of the same forces which brought 
into being ministerial pamphlets and treatises, and 
which led to the establishment of the periodicals already 
referred to, religious journalism is, at the same time, 
sufficiently dissimilar in its aim and scope to warrant 
special consideration. It was not the idea of the 
founders of the first religious newspapers to confine 
the contents of their journals to strictly religious arti- 
cles. They sought rather to graft upon the existing 
weekly secular newspaper religious principles and 
aims. This was in the mind of Nathaniel P. Willis 
when he established, January 3, 1816, the Boston 



478 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Recorder, whose successor Is the Congregatzonalzst, 
and whose claim to priority in the field of American 
religious journalism cannot be successfully disputed. 
Nearest it in age is the New York Observer, founded 
in 1823. Mr. Willis, in starting the Recorder, availed 
himself of the help of S. E. Morse of Charlestown, 
who was its first editor. Its early years were no less 
precarious than those of most journalistic undertak- 
ings, but in the course of a score of years it had 
shown that in combining secular with religious news, 
and in approaching political and social topics from the 
Christian point of view, It had Introduced into jour- 
nalism a distinctively new element, the worth of which 
was recognized by the fact that representatives of other 
denominations before many years established journals 
of their own patterned after the Recorder. The Re- 
corder, while not narrowly sectarian at the start, and 
never unpleasantly denominational, circulated chiefly 
among Congregationalists and was recognized as their 
organ. In 1849 ^^ Congregationalist was started to 
advocate more especially the views of the^ newer school 
in theology. In May, 1867, it absorbed the Recorder, 
retaining the name until November 3, 1870, since which 
time it has been known simply as the Co7tgregatio7ialist. 
The denomination has always given to this paper a 
generous support, and has recognized that as it was a 
pioneer in point of time, so as respects enlargement 
and improvement it has often set the pace for Its con- 
temporaries. It was one of the first papers to employ 
paid contributors of the first reputation. It originated 
and developed the system of collecting and presenting 
news from the churches all over the country. It has 
added department after department until its columns 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 479 

to-day mirror almost every phase of Christian activity 
and deal with all the larger interests of the church, the 
home, the school and of society. 

The spread of Congregationalism into other sections 
of the country has naturally led to the starting of other 
papers representing or affiliating with our denomina- 
tion. The Congregationalists of the metropolis in 
1848 felt the need of a journal of their own, and the 
Independent was projected. Its first number appeared 
December, 1848, under the joint editorship of those 
able and highly esteemed men Leonard Bacon, Joseph 
P. Thompson and Richard S. Storrs, Jr. It empha- 
sized particularly its devotion to free-soil principles, 
and rendered valuable services to the cause of aboli- 
tionism. There came a period in its history when it 
virtually cut loose from its denominational basis, but 
the pendulum swung back again in time. To-day, 
while it does not claim any relation to any denomina- 
tion, it circulates among many Congregationalists, and 
two of its leading editors, William Hayes Ward and 
Kinsley Twining, are useful and honored ministers of 
the Congregational denomination. 

Another of the religious newspapers whose head- 
quarters are in New York, and which in Its origin and 
conduct may be connected with our denomination 
rather than any other, is the Otitlook, the new series of 
the Christian Unions founded by Henry Ward Beecher 
in 1869, and edited to-day by Rev. Lyman Abbott, 
D. D., the successor of Mr. Beecher as pastor of 
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, and by Hamilton W. 
Mable. 

When Congregationalism had taken strong root In 
Chicago the desire manifested Itself there also for an 



48o 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



organ representing the churches of that region, and the 
wish was brought to fruition in the Advance, whose 
first number bears the date of September 5, 1867, and 
whose first editor was Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., 




GOODNOW HALL, IOWA COLLEGE, GRINNELL, lA. {page 3']2). 

always a stalwart and effective champion of the Con- 
gregational polity. There had been before the 
Advance two State papers In the West, the Iowa Nezvs 
Letter and the Wisconsin Puritan, both of which 
passed over their subscription list to the Advance and 
suspended publication. In later years State or sec- 
tional Congregational journals have sprung up In 
several strong Congregational centers in the West. 
The Pacific, which represents all the region west of 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 48 1 

the Rockies, has existed since 1853. In the East as 
well there has been quite a crop of State papers, few of 
which have attained any financial prosperity. G^e 
such, in one of the New England States, in the course 
of forty-four years had five titles, was the property of 
fourteen different persons, had twelve different editors, 
and was published in three different places. Then it 
ceased to be, but it had not been dead long before 
another sprang up in its place. So triumphantly does 
hope spring in the human heart that pants for the 
scissors and paste pot. 

When we attempt a survey of the contributions made 
by Congregationalists to the various departments of 
general literature we must confess at the outset that it 
is impossible in these limits to treat the subject ex- 
haustively. Merely to catalogue the books and the 
authors would be a herculean task. When it is 
remembered that Dr. Dexter, in his " Congregation- 
alism as seen in its Literature," enumerates no less 
than seven thousand two hundred and fifty pamphlets 
and books, and then calls the result of his arduous 
labors nothing but '* collections toward a bibliography 
of Congregationalism," one gets some idea of the 
vastness of the field under contemplation. Moreover, 
Dr. Dexter's chief attempt was to mention works 
vitally related to the history and polity of Congrega- 
tionalism, and he did not venture far into the field of 
general literature. It may, however, be possible, and 
it is certainly due to the denomination to convey some 
conception of the valuable and enduring service which 
men and women of our faith have rendered with the 
pen to the world. Take theology, for example. Think 
of the Illustrious contributions of Jonathan Edwards, 



482 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Nathaniel Emmons, Leonard Woods, Horace Bushnell 
and their contemporaries. Nor need we appeal only 
to the past, for still living among us are Edwards A. 
Park, Samuel Harris and James H. Fairchild, whose 
massive works in defense and exposition of the faith 
are so widely known. The lamented Lewis F. Stearns, 
cut off in the prime of his years, had already exhibited 
a masterly insight into theology that gave promise of 
larger service than that already rendered. The con- 
tributions of George P. Fisher to church history and 
apologetics entitle him to the high honor in which he is 
held in this country and abroad. Richard S. Storrs has 
given the public the fruits of his extensive researches 
in the field of ecclesiastical history, and Williston 
Walker, though belonging to a younger generation, 
has already made the denomination his debtor by his 
investigations into its past. Several admirable his- 
tories of individual churches have been written, notably 
that of the Old South Church, Boston, by Hamilton 
A. Hill, and that of the Beneficent Church, Providence, 
by James G. Vose. Many of our theologians have 
been sermonizers too, and it is therefore proper, under 
this head, to refer to the scores of volumes of excellent 
discourses circulated far and wide and varying in type 
and tone, from the polished utterances of Austin Phelps 
and Theodore T. Munger, the glowing discourses of 
Henry Ward Beecher and William M. Taylor, to the 
fervid appeals of Finney and Moody and other repre- 
sentatives of the evangelistic school. 

To philosophy no slight re-enforcement has been 
brought by those master minds Mark Hopkins, Noah 
Porter, Laurens Hickok and Julius H. Seelye ; while 
in jurisprudence no names shine with more luster than 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 483 

those of Theodore Woolsey and Benjamin Vaughn 
Abbott. 

The constantly accumulating mass of biblical and 
exegetical literature would be considerably lessened if 
from it were withdrawn the contributions of Congrega- 
tionalists, who have ever been foremost in prosecuting 
investigations in this field of research. Moses Stuart, 
on this side of the water, was one of the founders of 
biblical criticism, and his work has been taken up and 
carried forward in our day by the second Timothy 
Dvvight, the late Edwin C. Bissell, by J. Henry 
Thayer, whose monumental lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment throws a flood of light on the gospels and epistles ; 
by Charles M. Mead, Samuel Ives Curtiss, Edward Y. 
Hi neks, Benjamin W. Bacon; by George T. Ladd, 
who has promoted a better understanding of the origin 
and nature of the biblical revelation ; by William 
Hayes Ward, G. Frederick Wright and Selah Mer- 
rill, whose archaeological investigations have vastly 
increased the store of knowledge respecting the witness 
of the past to the truth of Scripture. The contribu- 
tions of English Congregationalists to theological and 
biblical science are numerous and exceedingly valuable. 
We cite a few representative names : J- Baldwin 
Brown, Edward White, James Legge, A. M. Fairbairn, 
R. W. Dale, Joseph Parker, Alfred Cave, H. R. Reyn- 
olds, R. F. Horton. 

An entire chapter might well be devoted to the part 
which Congregationalists have had in increasing the 
amount of literature relating to foreign missions and 
in multiplying and conserving Christian influences in 
other lands by means of the printing press. The Ely 
volume, by Thomas Laurie, formerly a missionary in 



484 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Persia, presents fully the literary and scientific work 
done by missionaries. The writings of Dr. A. C. 
Thompson and Rufus Anderson represent admirably 
the effective labor along this line of men who, not on 
missionary ground themselves, have watched the prog- 
ress of missions with keenest interest. As respects the 
men who have gone to the field, the literary labors 
in Turkey of Cyrus Hamlin, William Goodell, Elias 
Riggs, William Schauffler, and George Herrick have 
been great both in extent and effect, while no less valu- 
able work in the way of translation has been done by 
Messrs. Baldwin, Williams and Blodget in China, b}^ Dr. 
J. K. Greene in Japan and by Lewis Grout in Africa, 
whose grammar of the Zulu language Professor W. S. 
Tyler pronounces the most scientific of any work of 
that sort in any language. The feat accomplished by 
Hiram Bingham in reducing to writing the language of 
the Gilbert Islanders and^ in then translating into it 
the whole Bible has probably never been paralleled. 
During the first fifty years of the history^^f the Ameri- 
can Board no less than one billion five hundred million 
pages of literature were issued in forty-three different 
languages. The Ely Volume mentions one hundred 
and twenty-nine books in English prepared by or 
relating to the missionaries of the Board. The great 
work of S. Wells Williams on the Middle Kingdom 
should not be overlooked in this connection. Ameri- 
can Board missionaries have reduced to writing as 
many as twenty-seven languages, and to them are 
credited one hundred and eighty translations of the 
Bible, and the amount of Christian literature sent forth 
from printing presses, established at various centers of 
the Board's operations, can only be approximately 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 485 

computed. The patient labor of Dr. Stephen R. 
Riggs, on our Western frontier, in translating the 
Bible into the Indian tongue should not be forgotten. 
A glance at the missionary library which Dr. George 
E. Day is building up for the Yale Divinity School 
would confirm and enforce these statements in regard 
to the prominence of Congregationalists as makers of 
missionary literature. 

Hymnology and hymnody owe much to Congrega- 
tionalists. What hymns can compare in circulation 
with those of Isaac Watts, a Congregationalist? while 
Doddridge, also a CongregationaHst, is no mean second 
to him. On this side the Atlantic Timothy Dwight 
and Dr. Ray Palmer have written hymns that will last 
as long as the church lasts ; while such names as 
Phoebe H. Brown, Samuel Wolcott, Benjamin Tappan, 
Washington Gladden, Increase N. Tarbox and J. E. 
Rankin are to be held in grateful remembrance for the 
thought and feeling which they have embodied in 
graceful verse. In the production of hymn books also 
Congregationalists have been at the front. Dr. Strong, 
pastor of the First Church In Hartford, brought out 
the first American publication of this sort in 1799, 
although Watts had been reprinted here as early as 
1 741, and twenty years earlier even Watts had sent a 
copy of his hymns and versions of the Psalms to Cotton 
Mather, who drew largely from it In making his own 
book of hymns. Various editions of this prince of 
hymnists appeared at intervals, notable among which 
was President Dwieht's in 1800. Samuel Worcester 
wrote several volumes on Christian psalmody, and his 
name Is to be linked with the famous Watts and " Select 
Hymns." Nettleton found time in the midst of his 



486 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

evangelistic labors to bring out in 1824 " Village 
Hymns," which were extremely popular all over the 
country. Lowell Mason, the famous composer, came 
to public attention in 1827, and in 1831 published, in 
conjunction with David Greene, a book known as 
"Church Psalmody," with eleven hundred and eighty- 
five selections. Mason is pre-eminently deserving of 
his title, ''the father of American church music." In 
his long life of eighty years he virtually revolutionized 
the type of sacred song through his public work and 
through his fifty volumes of musical composition and 
instruction, which attained an aggregate circulation of 
two million copies. To him more than any other man 
was due the introduction of music as a feature of 
public school education, and all through his life he 
strove to bring to the common people the benefits of 
his musical genius. He was the first man in the 
country to receive from an American university the 
degree of musical doctor. Henry Ward Beecher's 
"Plymouth Collection," published in 1855, carried with 
it the prestige of a great name. Drs. Park and Phelps 
in 1858 brought out the "Sabbath Hymn Book," for 
which Horatius Bonar and Ray Palmer wrote special 
hymns and translations. The successor to this work 
was the "Sabbath Hymn and Tune Book," in which 
Dr. Phelps and Dr. Park were assisted by Lowell 
Mason. The only American book that ever bore the 
title "Congregational Hymn Book" was that of Elias 
Nason, published in Boston in 1857. In later years a 
number of our Congregational ministers have ventured 
upon this branch of literature. The book " Hymns of 
the Faith" was brought out by several Andover pro- 
fessors in 1887, ^^^ within a few months Dr. Lyman 



CONGREGATIONAL LITERATURE. 



487 



Abbott has Issued a " Plymouth Hymnal." Other 
creditable works of this character are associated with 
the names of Charles H. Richards and F. N. Peloubet, 
while the denomi- 
nation is indebted 
to men like Edwin 
P. Parker, Profes- 
sor Waldo S. Pratt, 
Joseph T. Duryea 
and Edward Hun- 
gerford for their 
successful endeav- 
ors to enrich the 
service of wor- 
ship. 

As writers of de- 
votional literature 
ThomasC. Upham, 
Austin Phelps, 
Dr. E. N. Kirk, 
Nehemiah Adams, 
William W. Pat- 
ton, Mrs. Eliza- 
beth Payson Pren- 
tiss and Miss A. E. Warner are representative names. 
Sociological topics have been treated ably In books 
and periodicals by Joslah Strong, Richard T. Ely, 
Samuel L. Loomis, Robert A. Woods and Washington 
Gladden. Special phases of Christian activity, like the 
work of young people's societies, have been exploited 
by Rev. F. E. Clark, D. D., and the author of the best 
book on open-air preaching Is Rev. E. H. Bylngton. 
Sunday-school literature is both plentiful and excellent, 




LOWELL MASON, MUS. DOC 



__ 



488 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

and the names of Henry Clay Trumbull, Asa Bullard, 
George M. Boynton and F. N. Peloubet are identified 
with this phase of our subject. As writers of fiction 
J. G. Holland, George W. Cable, A. S. Hardy, Eliza- 
beth Stuart Phelps and Harriet Beecher Stowe consti- 
tute a cluster of writers of which the denomination 
may justly be proud ; while not a few other persons, 
like F. W. Gunsaulus, George A. Jackson and E. 
P. Tenney, have pursued story-writing as a voca- 
tion with considerable success. We may enumerate 
among the successful writers for children Jacob Abbott, 
''Sophie May," William M. Thayer and Charles 
Carleton Coffin. For a poet of the first rank Congre- 
gationalists may point to John Milton. They may 
also claim Daniel DeFoe, the author of " Robinson 
Crusoe," and Bunyan, the author of the immortal alle- 
j^ory, ''Pilgrim's Progress." 

This necessarily incomplete and superficial summary 
of the contributions of Congregationalists to the world's 
literature may answer the purpose of quickening within 
the denomination the sense of the contributions its 
members have made to the world's wealth, and may 
show to others not of our faith that Congregationalists 
have kept step with the march of thought in all the 
ranges of human interest, and in their day and genera- 
tion have sought to make the world wiser and better 
by enshrining in an enduring form the thoughts God 
gave them and the things they learned in His universe 
and in contact with their fellow-men. 




LEONARD BACON, D. D., LL. D. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

VISIBLE UNITY. 
{By Rev, Alonzo H. Quint, D. D) 

SEVEN churches in London set forth in 1646 a 
Confession of Faith. Among the signers thereto, 
and apparently one of the framers, was Hanserd 
Knollys, a godly minister, who, in 1638, had founded 
in the edge of the wilderness, upon the banks of the 
Pascataqua, the first church in New Hampshire, and 
who preached the gospel until nearly ninety-three 
years of age. This confession states the ecclesiastical 
character of the local church, and the relation of 
churches one to another, in the following well-chosen 
words : '' And although the particular Congregations 
be distinct and severall bodies, every one as a compact 
and knit Citie within itselfe ; yet are they all to walke 
by one rule of truth ; So also they (by all meanes 
convenient) are to have the counsell and helpe one of 
another, if necessitie require it, as members of one 
body, in the common faith, under Christ their head." 
The freedom of Congregationalism from set forms of 
government and unchanging methods of administra- 
tion enables it to adapt itself to all classes, all times 
and all needs ; but the simple Congregational prin- 
ciples thus stated are unchanging. 

In the Platform of church polity set forth by a com- 
mittee under the direction of the National Council 
of 1865, some paragraphs written by the learned 

489 



490 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ecclesiastical scholar and denominational leader, Dr. 
Leonard Bacon, expand the statement of the principle 
thus held two hundred years before : *' Although 
churches are distinct, and therefore may not be con- 
founded one with another; and equal, and therefore 
have not dominion one over another ; yet all the 
churches ought to preserve church communion one 
with another, because they are all united to Christ as 
integral parts of His one catholic church, militant 
against the evil that is in the world, and visible in the 
profession of the Christian faith, in the observance of 
the Christian sacraments, in the manifestation of the 
Christian life, and In the worship of the one God of 
our salvation, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost." Nor does the principle herein embodied 
limit Itself to the communion and fellowship of Con- 
gregational churches merely. It is without limit 
except in the boundaries of the Church of Christ upon 
earth. " The churches of the Congregational polity, 
as Integral portions of Christ's catholic church," says 
the Platform, ''maintain all practicable communion 
with all other portions of the church universal. While 
other churches differ from us in their Internal polity, 
in their relations and connections with each other, in 
their forms of worship, or in the uninspired state- 
ments and definitions of doctrines disputed among 
Christians, and while we disown their scheme of 
hierarchical or sy nodical government, we acknowledge 
as particular churches of Christ all congregations of 
Christian worshipers that acknowledge the Holy 
Scriptures as their supreme rule of faith and practice, 
and Christ as the Lamb of God who taketh away the 
sin of the world." 



VISIBLE UNITY. 49I 

With all such churches our churches exercise all acts 
of communion which are possible, and which such other 
churches are willing to receive or extend. Such com- 
munion is often manifested in the receiving or dismiss- 
ing of members one to another, in the exchange of 
pulpit ministrations, in the transfer of ministers from 
one denominational group to the other, in salutations 
conveyed by messengers from one denomination to 
another, and in hearty co-operative work, organized or 
otherwise, in great Christian and philanthropic enter- 
prises. But it is manifest that acts of communion 
otherwise than those of general Christian courtesy, or 
such as may be exhibited by individual Christians in 
common labors, are often impossible between churches 
widely differing in organization. Hence it is of neces- 
sity, and not from choice, that the Congregational 
churches are restricted to their own number in certain 
outward methods of fellowship. The visible unity of 
the church militant, impaired by Papacy, hierarchies, 
synods or rites, may still be preserved by keeping the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The senti- 
ment of the Congregational churches in favor of 
visible unity was well expressed by their unanimous 
vote in the National Council of 1892, as follows : 
'' Resolved, That this Council heartily agrees with the 
unanimous declaration of the International Congrega- 
tional Council, held in London in 1891, in favor of a 
federation without authority of all bodies of Christian 
churches, as soon as the* providence of God shall per- 
mit, for the manifestation of the unity of the Church 
of Christ upon the earth, and for harmonious action 
in advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ." 

The right and duty of local self-government by the 



492 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

churches themselves cannot be ignored. But it is not 
to be supposed that any church in our fellowship can 
disregard the obligations which are involved in that 
fellowship. No Congregational church is independ- 
ent. It can become so by withdrawing from its affilia- 
tions with the other churches, but in that case it ceases 
to be a part of the Congregational body. The acts of 
any church are not subject by appeal of any person to 
reversal, but the body of churches retains the neces- 
sary right to withdraw its fellowship from any church 
which in the exercise of its power becomes scandalous 
in faith or practice, or which violates the conditions of 
the communion of the churches. This principle is not 
new. Bartlet, in his '' Model of the Primitive Congre- 
gational Way," 1647, ^^^^ says: 

'' Or else, if it could be clearely evinced by any of 
the Congregationall men's words and writings, opinions 
or practises in old England or new : first that they 
do altogether exclude the advice and counsell of the 
servants of Christ in neighbour Churches, when there is 
occasion for it : or, secondly, That they refuse to be 
accountable for their actions unto those who shall, in a 
faire and orderly way, according to the rule of the 
Gospell, in the name of Christ desire them ... I say 
if these things could be fairly made out against those 
of the Congregationall way, it were something, then I 
confesse, our brethren (as in words they professe them- 
selves) might justly accuse us before heaven and earth 
of Pride and Arroganc}^ of presumption, Blasphemy 
and impudency : but (forever blessed be the Lord) this 
they cannot do." 

The fellowship of the Congregational churches is 
first, of necessity, one of sentiment. They neither need 



VISIBLE UNITY. 493 

nor desire a formal external authority which should 
bind together incongruous elements. Indifferent to 
non-essentials, and reverential to conscientious convic- 
tions, they hold that no true unity can exist except by 
the spontaneous affiliation of Christians. Christian love 
is the bond of union. The expression of such fellow- 
ship must be made in outward forms, and whatever 
thus expresses fellowship is the exhibition of unity. 
The churches can include in their Immediate commun- 
ion those churches, and those only, who in faith and 
order voluntarily recognize the claims of such unity, 
by practical agreement in essential doctrine and sub- 
stantial co-operation in work. This they do. 

As particular churches, their unity is manifested one 
with another in simple and practical ways. They show 
It by admitting members of one church to communion 
with another at the Lord's table, and respecting the dis- 
cipline of any church by refusing to receive such as are 
under its censure ; in the dismission and reception of 
members ; in admitting a minister of one church to 
preach the Word and administer the sacraments in 
another ; in giving and receiving advice when one 
church desires counsel of another or of many others ; 
in giving and receiving admonition, when there is 
found in a church some public offense ; and in giving 
and receiving help when one church needs outward sup- 
port from the contributions of another or of many 
others. In all these methods the churches have from 
the beginning recognized their mutual privileges and 
obligations as integral parts of the visible church under 
Christ, the Head. They have found no necessity for 
any dominant power to take the performance of such 
acts out of the hands of the local churches. 



494 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

But it has always been held that the communion of 
the churches was not limited to an act of one church 
directly communing with another single church in such 
ways as have just been specified. In his "Disquisition 
on Ecclesiastical Councils," issued in the year 1716, 
Increase Mather writes thus regarding the relations of 
the churches : *' It has ever been their declared judg- 
ment, that when there is want of either Light or Peace 
in a particular Church it is their duty to ask for Coun- 
sel, &c., and that in Matters of common Concernment, 
Particular churches should proceed with the Concur- . 
rences of Neighboring churches." The phrase, *' Mat- 
ters of common Concernment," is the significant phrase 
in this statement of the learned writer. For all affairs 
which come under a fair interpretation of this princi- 
ple, our polity demands that the churches meet together 
for consultation and for expression of what may be 
the result of their deliberations. It is manifest that 
no church can rightly assume to do, without consulta- 
tion, what may affect the character and work of the 
churches in general. It is a matter of ''common Con- 
cernment " when brethren desire to be organized into 
and recognized as a distinct church. In such a case, 
they should ask the churches to meet in consultation, 
without which the needed fellowship cannot be 
extended. It is a matter of " common Concernment" 
when a church desires the ordination and installation 
of a minister over it, in so far as it may well take the 
advice of other churches in so grave a matter ; and 
particularly because, while a church may make a person 
its local pastor, ordination to the work of the ministry 
in general, and the fellowship of the churches given to 
such minister, necessarily require action by the churches 



VISIBLE UNITY. 



495 



properly convened for the purpose. It is a matter of 
"common Concernment" when a member of a church 
is unjustly excluded from the fellowship of the churches 
by some act of censure in his own church ; and the 
judgment of the churches may declare whether these 
other churches shall continue to fellowship him, should 
an evident injustice appear to have been done which 




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MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, MIDDLEBURY, VT. 



his church will not rectify. It is a matter of " common 
Concernment " when proposals for Christian work upon 
a scale more or less extended require the co-operation 
of a greater or less body of churches ; and such plans 
ought not to be undertaken without the concurrence of 
the. churches assembled for counsel. 

There came therefore at once into being the system 
of local ecclesiastical councils, called for a specific 
purpose mentioned in the call, and expiring with the 
conclusion of deliberations upon the subject in ques- 



49^ CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

tion. Such a council is simply a group of churches, 
each of which is represented by its pastor and one dele- 
gate. It is usually made up of a convenient number 
of the churches of the vicinage, although others more 
distant may be invited, particularly in cases where 
advice is needed from persons outside of an atmos- 
phere of possible contention. The practice has also 
grown up of asking the presence of a few persons 
of extended experience and wisdom in counsel. 
A church — or persons asking to be organized into a 
church — must always be a party to calling such a 
council, with the single apparent exception of one 
called by an aggrieved member of a church which 
ought to have itself consented to summon a council. 
In cases of controversy it must be impartially selected ; 
the parties agree upon a common list, or each selects 
one-half. In calling a council concerning the dismissal 
of a pastor, or a mutual one between a church and an 
aggrieved member, both parties sign the call for the 
council. But where there are two parties at variance 
within a church, and the church desires advice regard- 
ing these dissensions, the church alone issues the call, 
although each party is allowed a voice in the selection 
of churches to be invited. To constitute a quorum 
a majority of the invited churches must be represented. 
The call, known as ''letter missive," gives to each 
church and person invited a list of all churches and 
persons summoned, which list cannot be increased by 
any act of the council, either in conferring actual or 
honorary membership ; nor can the council admit any 
church or person invited by the church, but omitted 
from its list in the call. The letter missive specifies 
and absolutely limits the question to be laid before the 



VISIBLE UNITY. 497 

council. When this subject has been carefully con- 
sidered, the conclusions arrived at are embodied in 
what is technically known as a ''result." This result 
is in many cases necessarily only advisory, and a 
church may decline to act in accordance with it with- 
out incurring censure, but in some cases the result is 
necessarily conclusive. Thus, a council called to act 
upon the proposed ordination of a minister, and pro- 
ceeding to ordain him, of course determines the ques- 
tion. A council called with power to declare the 
dissolution of a pastoral relation can decide impera- 
tively, but such power is seldom given. The courts in 
Massachusetts, and also in some other States, have 
recognized the existence of councils as a part of our 
polity, and have declared that when a council is impar- 
tially selected, and proceeds according to the ordinary 
principles of fairness, either party accepting the result 
of such council will be sustained by law in cases within 
the cognizance of law. 

It must be remembered that councils are not to be 
convened upon trivial occasions, nor does every ground 
of dissatisfaction afford a just cause for demanding the 
convening of such a body. They are proper only in 
cases involving the communion of the churches. No 
member of a church can demand a council, and, if 
refused, call an ex parte council, unless he has been 
deprived of good standing, and thereby of the right of 
communing with other churches. A council is in no 
sense a court of appeal from some church action sup- 
posed to be injudicious, nor can any council annul or 
reverse a decision of any church within that church. 
Proper occasions for councils are these : (i) The 
organizing or receiving a church into fellowship ; (2) 



498 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

the ordination of a person to the ministry, with or 
without induction into the pastoral office, and the in- 
stallation of pastors previously ordained ; (3) the 
dismissal of an installed pastor from his office in a 
particular church ; (4) the giving advice to a church 
asking for it in cases where internal difficulties 
disturb its peace ; or where parties exist within the 
church whose variance suggests the pressing need 
of counsel ; (5) the giving advice where the church 
is in doubt as to needed measures for its pros- 
perity ; (6) the consideration of an alleged offense by 
some member which both the member and the church 
desire to refer to a council for advice before church 
action ; (7) the hearing upon a claim of unjust censure 
by a church upon some member, mutually referred for 
advice to such council ; or, in case of refusal by the 
church, its consideration by an ex parte council called 
bf the aggrieved member in view of alleged injustice, 
but with power only to advise the church, and recom- 
mend his reception by any other church ; (8) the hear- 
ing by a mutual or ex parte council of a complaint that 
a member, being in good and regular standing, has been 
refused a letter of dismissal and recommendation to 
some other church which he had requested in good faith ; 
(9) the hearing of charges against a pastor or other or- 
dained minister in a church, which would, if proved, make 
it proper that he be deposed from the ministry, and thus 
lose the fellowship of the churches as a minister of 
the gospel ; (10) the hearing of a complaint by any 
one church that another particular church has after 
admonition persisted in offenses as to faith or practice 
which affect the reputation of the body of churches. 
It will be seen that councils are proper only in cases 



VISIBLE UNITY. 499 

of "common Concernment." For such cases, whether 
affecting a church or an Individual member, the system 
furnishes ample opportunity for the expression of all 
that is contained In Christian fellowship as applied to 
single and specific occurrences. Nor do our churches 
find any need of standing judicatories, and they feel 
that it is better to trust to the advice of faithful breth- 
ren in some matter of common interest or in a case of 
alleged injustice, rather than ask for judicial decisions 
from a tribunal in the form of verdicts. They prefer 
the advice of brethren selected freshly for a given 
case, and then returning to the brotherhood which sent 
them, rather than standing and permanent officials. 
They believe that an isolated case of alleged grievance 
can be more easily settled in its own limited neighbor- 
hood than by a system of successive courts which 
widens it to the cognizance of a continent. The 
whole body of churches, while not bound so to do by 
any constitution, yet tacitly acquiesces in the decisions 
arrived at by groups of churches orderly convened in 
their respective localities. The result has justified the 
wisdom of this course. The flexible character and 
the easy adjustment of fellowship have readily settled 
estrangements which might otherwise have rent in two 
a whole denomination. Local dissensions have been 
healed by the kindly assistance of local councils, which 
judicial trials would often have made permanent. The 
whole method has its power in Christian love and 
neighborly affection. Fellowship, and not authority, is 
the secret of its administration. These councils are 
the visible expression of afifinltles in doctrine and prac- 
tice. No two of them ever comprise precisely the 
same churches, and thus all the churches become inter- 



500 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



woven. In the days of the great New England defec- 
tion it was not necessary to exclude by council. The 
mere omission by evangelical churches to invite into 
counsel those churches which had become alien from 
the faith itself settled the question of fellowship 
and made formal by natural process the inevitable 
separation. 

But our churches have found a peculiar method of 




YANKTON COLLEGE, YANKTON, S. D. {page 379). 



expressing visible unity In the great religious benevo- 
lent associations for Christian work in which Congrega- 
tionalists have been acknowledged as leaders. These 
works were not undertaken to express that unity; they 
were begun because such unity, in loyalty to the com- 
mand of Christ to go into all the world and preach 
the gospel to every creature, already existed. Our 
great organizations for these Christian purposes 



VISIBLE UNITY. 50I 

Indeed were established, in the main, on a basis 
broader than that of denominational life. The fathers 
sought, as has been already shown in previous chap- 
ters of this work, to unite Christians of all evangelical 
names in missionary operations. The hope that this 
might be accomplished, which for a time seemed war- 
ranted, proved fallacious. This disappointment came 
by no act of ours, but because others, growing 
stronger or more denominational, withdrew from 
co-operation. Doubtless it was the providence of God 
to make His work more effectual. While this partial 
union continued, and since the separation, the unity of 
our churches in Christian work, which was the expres- 
sion of Christian faith, was wonderfully visible. It 
was the result of that Inner life which can develop 
activity of itself, and without waiting for, or needing, 
the decrees of some central government issuing its 
orders and providing methods. The unity which 
manifested itself In voluntary Christian work through 
associated agencies, shaped simply as God's provi- 
dence showed the immediate way, has been far more 
Impressive than any trained system of government 
could possibly have been. It Avas the visible unity 
of the Spirit. 

We have already seen that our general associations 
for Christian work originated with individuals rather 
than with ecclesiastical organizations. Men and women 
moved by the Holy Ghost united for some special 
work to which they were peculiarly inclined. This has 
been called the voluntary system. Such men and 
women did not need to wait for the consent of some 
hierarchy or some synod before entering Into the place 
of their labors. There were special reasons, indeed. 



502 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

why the voluntary union of persons rather than that 
of churches was the method chosen. Except in the 
Hmited territory of consociations, and there but in part, 
we had no associations of churches, yet when our first 
great society, that for foreign missions, was to come 
into existence the young men who projected the enter- 
prise did the best they could. They applied to the 
General Association of Massachusetts, which, although 
a clerical body, was held to practically represent the 
evangelical churches of the State. That body or- 
ganized the American Board and appointed its first 
members. With a similar body in Connecticut it made 
appointments the following year. The Board ceased 
to be a representative body only when legal incorpora- 
tion was deemed necessary, and in procuring incorpo- 
ration the representative principle was ignored by the 
delegates who sought it. 

Our other great societies, with a single exception, 
came into being by individual co-operation, as has been 
shown in the specific accounts of those bodies. This 
method was partially due to the strong desire for co- 
operation between Christians of different denomina- 
tions. But it was also greatly due to a want of vivid 
conception of the Congregational principles underlying 
the nature and duties of the local church. It was felt 
without much thought that voluntary associations of 
all persons interested in a special work practically 
represented the churches. The American Board, how- 
ever, with its limited membership, was not voluntary 
even In this sense. 

But a general change from Individualism to church 
representation was Inevitable. When members of 
other denominations withdrew, the societies were in 



VISIBLE UNITY. 503 

new conditions. The constant appeals for contribu- 
tions which their officials made to the churches through 
the pulpits and in our general annual and local gather- 
ings, awoke the question whether these churches 
should be excluded as such from the control of the 
work which they supported. The rising sense of 
loyalty to Congregational principles of church order 
was having its effect. It is Congregational that 
the churches as in the days of the fathers should 
consult and act together in all matters of " common 
Concernment." There could be no greater common 
concern than that of the missionary operations of 
these churches. For the doctrine to be preached, the 
methods to be employed, the financial support to be 
afforded, the churches were responsible. These re- 
sponsibilities could not be left to individual control. 
The discussions which ensued found their complete 
conclusion in the action of the National Council of 
1889. This council, representing the churches from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, in appointing a committee 
to consult with the committees of the several national 
benevolent societies as to ''the relations of these 
societies to the churches," unanimously said: ''And 
for guidance of the said committees the Council de- 
clares its opinion in favor of steps which in due time 
will make the said societies the representatives of the 
churches." 

Some of these societies had, much earlier than this 
date, placed themselves in harmony with Congrega- 
tional principles by providing for the admission of 
delegates, with full voting powers, from all contribut- 
ing churches. The last of the societies to acknowl- 
edge the demand of Congregationalism was the Amer- 



504 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
With a membership of but two hundred and fifty 
persons, and these serving for Hfe, and with recurring 
vacancies filled by the votes of the remaining members, 
its absolute independence of the churches whose love 
for missions forced them to contribute their moneys, 
was an anomaly in Congregationalism. It was an 
independence absolutely unknown to any other Protes- 
tant missionary society. The magnificent work done 
by our missionaries, and the admirable administration 
of the affairs by the Board, had kept that Board dear 
to the hearts of our people, notwithstanding this or- 
ganic separation. The National Council had given 
voice to what had become almost universally de- 
manded. In 1892 the Board unanimously adopted a 
tentative measure for one year, by which two-thirds 
of all recurring vacancies should be filled by nomina- 
tions made pro rata by the several State organizations 
of churches.^ The National Council, at its meeting 
immediately following, unanimously declared its grati- 
fication at this action, and expressed the earnest hope 
that the Board would take further measures to make it 
a representative body, and that these measures would 
be such as would '' show the confidence of the Board in 
the churches, and result in increased confidence of the 
churches in the Board." At its next meeting, that of 
1893, the Board justified this hope by unanimously 
largely increasing its limit of membership, and extend- 
ing the time in which the method of representation 
previously adopted should be in force. Thus the last 
of our great societies joined in acknowledging the Con- 
gregational principle that the churches themselves 
must control the united religious operations which the 



VISIBLE UNITY. 505 

providence of God calls upon them to support. Our 
churches do not, on the one hand, leave such work to 
irresponsible individuals, nor, on the other hand, do 
they submit it to church boards appointed by some 
consolidated central government, with all the liabilities 
to arbitrary and despotic power which such a system 
must fear. 

The unity of our churches has found still another 
method of illustration in the local groups of churches 
known as conferences or associations; and in the 
several State bodies v/hich cover the broader fields 
denoted by the title. All these came into being by 
natural development. They were not formed at the 
same period, nor in pursuance of a general plan. They 
have no power of government whatever, and can never 
entertain an appeal from any quarter. They meet 
solely for Christian communion and consultation ; and 
being free from all the perplexities and technicalities 
of ecclesiastical discipline, they furnish occasions for 
great spiritual profit. The local conferences, each in- 
cluding perhaps a score or more of churches, meet 
twice or oftener in each year, at one of which meetings 
the Lord's Supper is administered. Reports of church 
work, Sunday-school methods, and those of young peo- 
ple's societies, revival results, and kindred topics are 
discussed. These local conferences are of compara- 
tively recent origin. The early consociations were 
of a different character. In Ohio the Muskingum Con- 
ference and the Ecclesiastical Convention of New Con- 
necticut were formed between 1800 and 18 10 but soon 
disappeared. The oldest of the twenty-five conferences 
now existing in Massachusetts was organized in 182 1, 
the next in 1827, and seven more were in existence in 



5o6 



CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 



1830. In New Hampshire seven conferences had 
come into being in the period from 1826 to 1833. 
In Maine nine conferences were organized between 
1822 and 1829. In Vermont, where fourteen such 
bodies exist, the first conference, as such, was organ- 
ized in 1830; but consociations, formed at dates 




BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, BANGOR, ME. 

beginning with 1804 are now reported as conferences. 
In Connecticut the oldest conference dates from 1852. 
The rapid growth of the conference system was in the 
period when the Unitarian defection was becoming 
settled. In the time of their anxieties, and of their 
Inflexible purpose, they drew closer together in prayer- 
ful conference and affectionate communion. It was 
also a perlpd of revivals, and the result of such revivals 
was In part thus embodied. This system has become 
universal among our churches. A few ** independent" 
churches still remain in a partial connection with our 
body, but their number is steadily diminishing; and in 
many States the enrollment of churches upon our 



VISIBLE UNITY. $oy 

list naturally comes only through membership in a 
conference. These conferences are so thoroughly a 
constituent part of our system that they are rep- 
resented by their delegates in the National Council 
of which they constitute much the larger portion. 

Local associations of ministers were in existence as 
far back as the seventeenth century. They had no 
lay membership upon their lists, and were often looked 
upon with suspicion. It was feared that they might 
grow into bodies claiming jurisdiction. The Cam- 
bridge Platform, while it nominally denied to ministers 
any prerogatives as such, yet gave to each pastor an 
absolute negative on the decisions of his church. 
Practically the early ministry was a powerful body in 
church and state. Associations of ministers became 
careful not to infringe upon the rights of the churches. 
They are not to be confused with conferences of 
churches, but are voluntary bodies merely, for mutual 
edification and help. Yet the decisions of the highest 
court in our land have recognized the right of such 
bodies as being privileged to expel unworthy mem- 
bers, on the ground that they are natural judges of the 
purity of the ministry. Nevertheless, only a council 
called for the purpose can withdraw the fellowship 
of the churches from an unworthy minister. These 
associations are, in many parts of the country, terri- 
torially coincident with the limits of the conferences. 
In the absence of bodies representing churches they 
naturally examined candidates for the ministry, al- 
though they could not ordain. This trust generally 
remains with them ; and practically, in the Eastern 
States, it is the determination of ministerial standing. 
But the National Council of 1886, recognizing the prin- 



508 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

ciple that the fellowship of the churches in any particu- 
lar case belongs to the churches themselves (including 
ministers as well as lay members), advised the State 
and local organizations of churches ** to consider such 
modification of their constitution as will make them 
to become responsible for the ministerial standing of 
ministers within their bounds, in harmony with the 
principle that the churches of any locality decide upon 
their own fellowship." The result of this appropriate 
recommendation is still pending. 

From the local conference to the State conference 
was a natural development. The earliest body cover- 
ing a province or State was the General Association of 
Connecticut, organized May i8, 1709. It was a purely 
clerical body, and had some peculiar powers. The 
General Convention of Vermont followed June 21, 
1796 ; the General Association of Massachusetts, June 
29, 1803 ; Rhode Island, under the name of Consocia- 
tion, May 3, 1809, ^^^ ^^^ General Association of 
New Hampshire, June 8, 1809. These bodies, except 
Rhode Island, represented local associations of min- 
isters, and they interchanged delegates with each other 
in their meetings, which were held annually. The 
Rhode Island Consociation included churches, but it 
was on the plan which made it *' the regular and 
proper council for ordaining, installing and dismis- 
sing ministers"; and gave the ministers of this body 
the right of discipline over its ministers and licentiates. 
Many years elapsed before these provisions were 
annulled. It was for Maine to originate the real 
Congregational system in which the churches should 
be united in conferences. Its General Conference was 
organized January 10, 1825. All the other New Eng- 



VISIBLE UNITY. 509 

land State bodies except Connecticut have since 
changed their constitutions, so as to make these bodies 
the direct representatives of the churches, but without 
authority. Connecticut, whose General Association 
held certain trusts, organized a distinct general confer- 
ence of the churches November 12, 1867. The Gen- 
eral Association of New York was organized May 31. 
1834. The churches of the interior and far West 
adopted this system from the beginning, as they did 
that of local conferences ; and the churches of the 
South have followed the same plan. Forty such 
organizations now exist in as many States and Terri- 
tories. All possess the same character. They deter- 
mine the basis of their own fellowship, but they meet 
solely for consultation and expression of opinion on 
matters of common religious interest. They have no 
power to legislate or to act judicially ; but their 
opinions naturally carry more weight than would 
judicial determinations, because based solely upon the 
reasons found in such opinions and upon the love 
which prompted them. 

The right and power of local self-government 
remain in the particular churches, and cannot be sur- 
rendered. The system of neighborhood councils, sum- 
moned for specific action in such cases as have been 
already specified, retains unabated force and con- 
fidence. The great benevolent operations of the 
churches, which require united efforts, are provided for 
by representation of the churches interested. The 
grouping of churches in neighborhood conferences 
and in State organizations for purposes of Christian 
consultation and edification, in regular recurring 
gatherings, are parts of the providential evidence 



5IO CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

of Christian unity. But the broadening extent of our 
national domain, whose western progress has been 
accompanied by the westward movement of our 
churches, has inevitably led to a broader application 
of the principles of our polity. Consultations of a 
general character became necessary. We have seen 
that even the fathers found general synods indispen- 
sable. Two such synods, those of 1637 and 1648, 
and other partial synods, have already been noticed. 
Then they fell into disuse. Little organization existed 
for generations. But habits and methods which could 
be tolerated while the churches were scarcely beyond 
the sound of the Atlantic surf, were insufficient when 
the advanced line of the churches was crossing a con- 
tinent. Congregational principles were adequate to 
every need, and a return was had to the methods of 
the fathers. 

More than two hundred years had elapsed from the 
date when the churches had adjourned from their 
synod at Cambridge to the time when they were again 
called together for consultation -as a whole. The 
third general synod, known as "a convention of 
ministers and delegates of Congregational churches 
in the United States," met *'in accordance with a call 
issued by direction of the General Association of New 
York." It assembled in Albany, N. Y., on the 5th day 
of October, 1852 ; consisted of four hundred and sixty- 
three elders and messengers from churches in seven- 
teen States ; chose Rev. William T. Dwight, D. D., of 
Maine, President ; and Rev. Noah Porter, D. D., of 
Connecticut, and Rev. Asa Turner of Iowa, Vice 
Presidents, and dissolved on the 8th day of October. 

The main subjects upon which the Convention acted 



VISIBLE UNITY. 5 II 

were : i. The project of aiding feeble churches at the 
West in building church edifices. 2. The construc- 
tion and practical operation of the " Plan of Union 
between Presbyterians and Congregationalists," agreed 
upon by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church and the General Association of Connecticut in 
the year 1801. 

The first of these topics was made imperative by 
the rapid emigration westward, and the necessity of 
assisting churches in their feeble beginnings to erect 
houses of worship. The Convention adopted a plan 
for raising the sum of fifty thousand dollars at once, 
and for its apportionment and use. Much more than 
this modest sum was speedily raised, and it was the 
commencement of that great work of the church- 
building society which has placed its memorials through- 
out our whole land. 

Upon the second topic, the convention found that 
the Plan of Union had been repudiated by the Gen- 
eral Assembly before the schism of 1838, but was 
acknowledged as in force by one branch of that 
church ; that, although so acknowledged, it was not 
maintained in its integrity ; and that its operation was 
not only now ** unfavorable to the spread of, and 
permanence of, the Congregational polity," but ''even 
to the real harmony of these Christian communities." 
The convention, therefore, unanimously declared the 
continuance of the Plan of Union to be inexpedient. 
The general acceptance of this recommendation by 
the churches relieved both denominations from compli- 
cations injurious to harmony. 

Twelve years later a far greater emergency was 
before the churches. The great war was not ended. 



512 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

but men foresaw the coming triumph of the Union 
armies. New fields for Christian activity, from which 
CongregationaHsts had been practically excluded, were 
to be opened ; and the changed conditions of the 
North and West demanded more vigorous work in 
evangelization than had ever been attempted. What 
were the duties of the churches was a question of vast 
Importance. The summoning of a general council was 
suggested In various quarters, especially In the Interior. 
" The Triennial Convention of the Congregational 
Churches of the Northwest" — a body whose special 
work concerned the Chicago Theological Seminary — at 
Its meeting held in April, 1864, recorded the fact that 
vast regions were likely to be opened to the work of 
our churches, that great numbers of bondmen were to 
become free, and that the structure of society and 
of ecclesiastical organization was becoming greatly 
changed ; and declared that the churches ought " to 
inquire what is their duty In this vast and solemn 
crisis, such as comes only once In ages, and what new 
efforts, measures and policies they may owe to this 
condition of affairs — this new genesis of nations." 
It proposed that a National Congregational Conven- 
tion be held. The General Association of Illinois 
sustained the proposal. Other State bodies followed. 
The committees appointed by the several State or- 
ganizations met in Broadway Tabernacle, New York 
City, November 16, 1864. That gathering, of which 
Dr. Leonard Bacon was chairman, decided upon Bos- 
ton as the place, and June 14, 1865, as the date, of a 
National Council, and provided a plan of represen- 
tation through local conferences. It proposed, as 
subjects for consideration, the work of evangelization 




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514 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

in the West and South, and in foreign lands ; church- 
building ; ed»ucation for the ministry ; ministerial sup- 
port ; local and parochial evangelization ; a statement 
of church polity ; a declaration of faith, as held by the 
Congregational churches ; and the classification of 
benevolent organizations to be recommended to the 
patronage of the churches ; and its selected com- 
mittees to present papers upon these several subjects. 
Upon the fourteenth day of June, 1865, this National 
Council assembled in the Old South Meeting-house, 
in Boston — the house which had resounded to the elo- 
quence of the patriots of the Revolution, and which the 
British had used for a riding school. Five hundred 
and two members were present from twenty-five States ; 
sixteen delegates were present from foreign lands, and 
fourteen persons were made honorary members. Hon. 
William A. Buckingham, governor of Connecticut, was 
chosen moderator ; and Hon. Charles G. Hammond of 
Illinois, and Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., of New 
York, were made assistant moderators. The proceed- 
ings of this body, which was in session (apart from the 
Sabbath) ten days, covered much more than the range 
of the topics proposed. All the work committed to 
the various national denominational societies passed 
in review, and their necessities were considered ; while 
generous sympathy was expressed for undenominational 
societies like those for the circulation of the Bible and 
for Sunday schools. Collegiate education, the education 
of ministers, and ministerial support were considered. 
Systematic beneficence received attention. Foreign 
Missions as well as Home, the building meeting-houses 
and parochial evangelization were discussed at length. 
But the condition of the country, emerging as It was 



VISIBLE UNITY. 515 

from the conflict of arms, and coming Into the crisis of 
reconstruction, proved to be the theme of absorbing 
Interest. The opening of the South, and enfranchise- 
ment of minions of men, presented opportunities and 
created duties of the greatest moment. The response 
was earnest. It was resolved to enter upon the work 
which God had provided. As a beginning of contribu- 




ATLANTA UMIVERSHY, ATLANTA, GA. 

tlons, the council advised the immediate raising of 
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for general 
work, to which the churches afterward honorably 
responded. The enthusiasm which this council 
developed appears to have been almost the beginning 
of a new era. Dissensions which had existed, and 
differences of thought which still exist, It had been 
feared would make harmony in such a council almost 
impossible. Jealousies between different ''schools" 
might have been expected. There was no central 
authority to preserve unity or to command peace. 
But when brethren came together from all parts of the 
land, and came preserving their own peculiarities of 
thought ; meeting face to face, and in the presence of 
common responsibilities and duties, their faith in the 
one Lord dispelled all distrust. The exhibition of the 
unity of the Spirit in the bonds of love was complete. 



5l6 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

From that time the two *' schools," as they were called, 
passed out of sight. 

Two important subjects in addition to those just 
mentioned were considered by the council. The first 
was that of church polit}^ A preliminary committee, 
consisting of Dr. Leonard Bacon and Rev. A. H. 
Quint, presented an elaborate platform of polity, in 
which the hand of the distinguished chairman was evi- 
dently prominent. This proposed platform was finally 
referred to a committee of twenty-five ministers and 
laymen, including the two already mentioned, with 
many brethren eminent in knowledge residing in differ- 
ent parts of the land. The list embraced representa- 
tives of all the theological seminaries, presidents of 
colleges, distinguished pastors, and laymen high in 
judicial position. This committee, which was to pub- 
lish its conclusions at its leisure, subsequently carefully 
revised the proposed platform and gave it to the public. 
Their work was not "a, polemic defense of Congrega- 
tionalism, or a rhetorical commendation of it "; it was an 
exhaustive and careful statement of the principles and 
usages of our churches in their ecclesiastical govern- 
ment and relations. It was not the decree of any leg- 
islative power within our churches to which conformity 
could be required ; it was the united testimony of men 
qualified to declare what actually exists, and carries the 
weight which belongs to their deliberate judgment. 
This platform is the only one prepared by men under 
the direction of the churches since the year 1648, and 
an examination will show that it Is the best and 
clearest exposition of our principles and methods which 
now exists. 

The second of the two topics to which we have 



VISIBLE UNITY. 



517 



alluded was that of a declaration of faith. A prelimi- 
nary committee had presented a draft of such a declara- 
tion, which was referred to a committee of the council. 
This committee had reported a somewhat different 
paper, which was under discussion and which met with 
determined criticism, on the day which preceded that 
of a visit of the council to the Plymouth where the 
fathers had landed in 1620. The divergence of opin- 
ion was such as threatened to make unanimity impossi- 
ble. But when the council, on the morning of June 22, 
1865, met on Burial Hill, under a cloudless sky, a new 
draft of a declaration of faith was presented, which at 
once commanded the approval of the council. It em- 
bodied a considerable portion of the paper before the 
council on the preceding day, but introduced, and was 
also supplemented by, new matter, and it omitted need- 
less paragraphs which had excited controversy. Only 
two persons voted against its adoption, and these two 
votes disappeared when on the next day the declaration 
was reaffirmed after a few corrections of unimportant 
words. A spirit of gratitude to God was everywhere 
felt. A danger had been arrested. The real unity of 
our churches in faith had providentially found ex- 
pression. Professor Williston Walker of Hartford, 
in his learned work containing the *' Creeds and 
Platforms of Congregationalism," published in 1893, 
appropriately says : ''Thus came into being the only 
declaration of faith which a body representative of 
American Congregationalism as a whole had approved 
since 1648." Nor has any other declaration been 
set forth by the churches in council assembled since 
the declaration at Plymouth. The declaration is as 
follows : 



5l8 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Standing by the rock where the Pilgrims set foot upon these 
shores, upon the spot where they worshiped God, and among the 
graves of the early generations, we, elders and messengers of the 
Congregational churches of the United States in National Council 
assembled — like them acknowledging no rule of faith but the Word 
of God — do now declare our adherence to the faith and order of the 
apostolic and primitive churches held by our fathers, and substan- 
tially as embodied in the confessions and platforms which our 
synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or reaffirmed. We declare that 
the experience of the nearly two and a half centuries which have 
elapsed since the memorable day when our sires founded here a 
Christian commonwealth, with all the development of new forms of 
error since their times, has only deepened our confidence in the 
faith and polity of those fathers. We bless God for the inheritance 
of these doctrines. We invoke the help of the Divine Redeemer 
that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he will 
enable us to transmit them in purity to our children. 

In the times that are before us as a nation, times at once of duty 
and of danger, we rest all our hope in the gospel of the Son of God. 
It was the grand peculiarity of our Puritan fathers that they held 
this gospel, not merely as the ground of their personal salvation, 
but as declaring the worth of man by the incarnation and sacrifice 
of the Son of God ; and therefore applied its principles to elevate 
society, to regulate education, to civilize humanity, to purify law, to 
reform the church and the state, and to assert and defend liberty ; 
in short, to mold and redeem, by its all-transforming energy, every- 
thing that belongs to man in his individual and social relations. 

It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which 
we dwell. It is by this faith only that we can transmit to our 
children a free and happy, because a Christian, commonwealth. 

We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Conorreoational 
system that it exalts that which is more above that which is less 
important, and, by the simplicity of its organization, facilitates, in 
communities where the population is limited, the union of all true 
believers in one Christian church ; and that the division of such 
communities into several weak and jealous societies, holding the 
same common faith, is a sin against the unity of the body of Christ, 
and at once the shame and scandal of Christendom. 

We rejoice that, through the influence of our free system of 
apostolic order, we can hold fellowship with all who ackowiedge 



VISIBLE UNITY. 519 

Christ, and act efficiently in the work of restoring unity to the 
divided church, and of bringing back harmony and peace among all 
" who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 

Thus recognizing the unity of the church of Christ in all the 
world, and knowing that we are but one branch of Christ's people, 
while adhering to our peculiar faith and order, we extend to all 
believers the hand of Christian fellowship upon the basis of those 
great fundamental truths in which all Christians should agree. 
With them we confess our faith in God, the Father, the Son and the 
Holy Ghost, the only living and true God ; in Jesus Christ, the 
incarnate Word, who is exalted to be our Redeemer and King ; and 
in the Holy Comforter, who is present in the church to regenerate 
and sanctify the soul. 

With the whole church we confess the common sinfulness and 
ruin of our race, and acknowledge that it is only through the work 
accomplished by the life and expiatory death of Christ that believers 
in Him are justified before God, receive the remission of sins, and 
through the presence and grace of the Holy Comforter are delivered 
from the power of sin and perfected in holiness. 

We believe also in the organized and visible chyrch, in the minis- 
try of the Word, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Sup- 
per, in the resurrection of the body and in the final judgment, the 
issues of which are eternal life and everlasting punishment. 

We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given through 
prophets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the 
resurrection, of. His Son, our Divine Redeemer — a testimony pre- 
served for the church in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, which were composed by holy men as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost. 

Affirming now our belief that those who thus hold "one faith, one 
Lord, one baptism," together constitute the one catholic church, the 
several households of which, though called by different names, are 
the one body of Christ, and that these members of His body are 
sacredly bound to keep " the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace," we declare that we will co-operate with all who hold these 
truths. With them we will carry the gospel into every part of this 
land, and with them we will go into all the world and " preach the 
gospel to every creature." May He to whom " all power is given 
in heaven and earth " fulfill the promise which is all our hope : " Eo, 
I am with you alway, even to the end of the world. Amen." 



520 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

It was then solemnly reaffirmed and finally adopted 
by a rising vote, in connection with prayer by Rev. 
Dr. Palmer of New York, and the singing of '' My 
Faith Looks Up to Thee" and the Doxology. 

The correspondent of The Independent^ Dr. J. P. 
Gulliver, thus wrote of the scene on Burial Hill at 
Plymouth : 

'' It was a sublime moment ! Nearly two hundred 
and fifty years had passed since the feeble * Mayflower' 
company had repeated in solemn covenant the articles 
of their despised faith on that spot. * What do these 
feeble Jews?' said a sneering world, 'Even that 
which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break 
down their stone wall.' Now five hundred men, the 
representatives of three thousand churches, the repre- 
sentatives of ideas which have triumphed gloriously 
and finally over the land, the representatives of 
Puritanism, pure and simple, unchanged, unabashed, 
bold and intense, as in the days of the Commonwealth, 
stood on the soil made firm by the heroic tread of 
those despised men and exultingly declared : * This 
faith is our faith. These ideas have saved our 
country, and are going forth, conquering and to con- 
quer, over the world.' " 

The National Council of the Congregational 
churches of the United States is the natural and final 
expression of the unity of the churches. 

It had been held that in ordinary times the inter- 
change of delegates between State bodies was amply 
sufficient for purposes of consultation. It was also 
believed that only in cases of peculiar exigency were 
general councils or synods desirable. But the rapid 
extension of our churches had made the need of fre- 



VISIBLE UNITY. 52 1 

quent opportunities for general consultation strongly 
felt. The great and pressing duties of evangelization 
in view of the growth of cities, the rapid settlement 
of new parts of our country, the problems attending 
the citizenship of a race, and the great immigration 
needing to be met with the gospel of Christ, made 
exigencies continual. The stanchest advocates of the 
rights of the churches came to feel that a national 
organization was greatly to be desired, and that it 
could be secured without establishing even a shadow 
of ecclesiastical supremacy. The grand results of 
the council of 1865 had also proved beyond a doubt 
the value of national consultation. 

At the request of the Church of the Pilgrimage in 
Plymouth, Mass., a meeting was held in New York 
City March 2, 1870, to consider measures appropriate 
to the approaching fifth jubilee of the landing of the 
Pilgrims. That meeting recommended the holding 
of a Pilgrim Memorial Convention at Chicago, 111., 
April 27, 1870, to be made up of delegates from all 
churches who might care to appoint them. That con- 
vention, meeting in connection with the Triennial Con- 
vention of the Northwest, among its acts took occasion 
to give voice to what had been privately discussed ; and 
recommended to the several State and other organiza- 
tions " to unite in measures for instituting, on the 
principle of fellowship, excluding ecclesiastical author- 
ity, a permanent National Conference." The Ohio 
General Conference, on a motion made by Dr. A. H. 
Ross, was the first of the State bodies to take decisive 
action, and it appointed a committee to act with others 
in bringing about the desired result. Nearly all of the 
State organizations heartily approved the proposal and 



522 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

appointed suitable committees. Only one State, which 
contained seventy churches, made objection, and that 
only by one majority. The Massachusetts committee 
invited all other committees to meet in the Congre- 
gational Library in Boston upon the twenty-first day of 
December, 1870. The meeting was accordingly held, 
Dr. E. B. Webb of Boston being made moderator, and 
Hon. A. C. Barstow of Providence assistant moderator. 
The action of the several State bodies having been 
presented, it was unanimously resolved, ''That it is 
expedient, and appears clearly to be the voice of the 
churches, that a National Council of the Congrega- 
tional churches of the United States be organized." 

It was a fitting date upon which the churches thus 
decreed their visible unity. It was the exact two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the day, December 21, 
1620, on which the little church of Christ had landed 
at Plymouth. 

The simple measures taken were to select a commit- 
tee charged with the duly of preparing the draft of 
a suitable constitution, select the time and place of 
meeting, and issue the call for such meeting, under 
certain definite instructions as to the character of the 
proposed constitution and the method of representation. 
The committee chosen by ballot consisted of Rev. A. 
H. Quint of Massachusetts, Rev. President William E. 
Merrlman of Wisconsin, Rev. Professor Samuel C. 
Bartlett of Illinois, Samuel Holmes of New Jersey, 
Major-General Oliver O. Howard, U. S. A., Rev. 
William I. Budlngton of New York and Hon. Amos 
C. Barstow of Rhode Island. 

Under the call of this committee the first council 
convened at Oberlin, O., November 15, 1871. Called 



VISIBLE UNITY. 523 

to order by the chairman of the preliminary committee, 
who read the letter summoning the council, the dele- 
gates chose Hon. Erastus D. Holton of Wisconsin to 
be temporary moderator. Two hundred and seventy- 
six delegates were present from twenty-five States. 
Eleven honorary members included delegates from 
seven benevolent societies and three theological sem- 
inaries. The proposed constitution was adopted, with 
unimportant amendments; and Rev. William Ives 
Budington, D. D., of New York, was chosen modera- 
tor, and Major-General Oliver O. Howard, U. S. A., 
and Rev. George H. Atkinson, D. D., of Oregon, were 
made assistant moderators. 

The place of meeting was happily chosen. The 
choice recognized the great work which Oberlin had 
done in our land. It signified the removal of past 
distrust. Well did Dr. Budington say, in his opening 
address, *' We stand to-day upon the grave of buried 
prejudices.." When the venerable Charles G. Finney, 
in feeble health, with tears flowing from his eyes, spoke 
to the thronging congregation upon *' the baptism of 
the Holy Spirit " tears were also upon every cheek, 
and it was believed that that baptism rested upon the 
messengers of the churches in their new work. 

The constitution, which has remained practically un- 
changed, has certain features which must be noticed : 

First, it declares the object in view : " The Congre- 
gational churches of the United States, by elders and 
messengers assembled, do now associate themselves in 
National Council, to express and foster their substan- 
tial unity in doctrine, polity and work : and to consult 
upon the common interests of all the churches, their 
duties in the work of evangelization, the united devel- 



524 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

opment of their resources and their relations to all 
parts of the kingdom of Christ." 

Secondly, it acknowledges " the Scriptural and in- 
alienable right of each church to self-government 
and administration "; and declares that '' this National 
Council shall never exercise legislative or judicial 
authority, nor act as a council of reference." 

Thirdly, it says that the churches "agree in belief 
that the Holy Scriptures are the sufificient and only 
infallible rule of religious faith and practice ; their 
interpretation thereof being in substantial accordance 
with the great doctrines of the Christian faith, com- 
monly called evangelical, held in our churches from 
the early times, and sufficiently set forth by former 
general councils." It was the undoubted intent, in 
choosing this language, to ignore all distinctions 
between Calvinist and Arminian, and to base the 
union of the churches upon the great evangelical 
faith common to Christendom. Such was the expo- 
sition of the distinguished moderator. In harmony 
with this purpose was the action of the council of 
1892, as follows : 

" Resolvedy That affiliation with our denomina- 
tion of churches not now upon our roll, should be 
welcomed upon the basis of common evangelical faith, 
substantial Congregational polity and free communion 
of Christians, without regard to forms or minor 
differences." 

The council is composed of delegates equally 
divided between ministers and laymen from local con- 
ferences and State organizations. Each local confer- 
ence sends one delegate for every ten churches upon 
its roll and one for a final fraction greater than five- 



. VISIBLE UNITY. 525 

tenths ; but each conference is entitled to at least one 
delegate. Each State organization elects one delegate 
and one for each ten thousand communicants in the 
churches upon its roll and one for a final major fraction 
thereof. Each national Congregational benevolent 
society and each theological seminary sends one hono- 
rary delegate. A secretary, a registrar and a treasurer 
are chosen at each triennial session to serve for three 
years ; and the moderator at any session presides 
during the organizing of the next succeeding. A pro- 
visional committee is appointed at each triennial ses- 
sion to propose topics of such eminent importance as 
may demand attention at the next, while the several 
benevolent societies and theological seminaries avail 
themselves of the opportunity by their delegates to pre- 
sent statements of their condition at each session, which 
are then considered by the council. Certain committees 
are also appointed at each session to make careful in- 
vestigation into specified matters of weighty impor- 
tance, and to report thereon at the next session. But 
these committees are not prescribed by any standing 
rule. So simple is the organization of this body. 

Many subjects have been before the successive coun- 
cils. The general work of the churches through the 
various societies has always had the most prominent 
place of consideration. The council has discussed 
specific themes like temperance, the observance of the 
Sabbath, marriage and divorce, the right treatment of 
the Indians and of the Chinese ; and the Mormon ques- 
tion and arbitration among nations are found upon 
record. Denominational comity has been repeatedly 
discussed. Parochial evangelization, city evangeliza- 
tion and work among our foreign-born population ; 



526 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

systematic beneficence ; education in colleges and 
State universities and the education of ministers ; the 
relation of church and parish, exhaustively presented ; 
pastorless churches and churchless pastors ; the minis- 
terial supply, economy in ministerial force, and minis- 
terial support ; tests of church membership ; the posi- 
tion of children in the church, Sunday-school instruc- 
tion, and the Christian Endeavor movement have re- 
ceived careful attention and been the subjects of 
thoughtful deliverances. As to caste, against which it 
pronounced in 1871, the council has been the means 
of readily deciding the question by affirming that no 
conferences of churches can be recognized by the re- 
ception of their delegates unless those conferences 
give equal rights to all alike. Without the least fric- 
tion It decided upon the position of women in ecclesias- 
tical affairs; when in the council of 1880 a woman pre- 
sented credentials as delegate from Colorado, her name 
was placed upon the roll as a matter of course and 
without dissent. Thus easily does Congregationalism 
decide great questions without involving any crashing 
of ecclesiastical machinery. It is also proper here to 
note that women are found as delegates in our ecclesias- 
tical councils, our local conferences and our State or- 
ganizations, and that their Christian right of voting 
in our churches Is now almost universally understood. 
The council has established a fund for the relief of 
aged or disabled ministers and the widows and orphans 
of such if needing assistance. 

Upon the question of ministerial tests and standing, 
the council unanimously declared our recognized prin- 
ciples In 1892 as follows : 

" Each Congregational church has Its own confession 



VISIBLE UNITY. 52/ 

of faith, and there is no authority to impose any 
general confession upon it nor are our ministers re- 
quired to subscribe to any specified doctrinal standards. 
But, as a basis of fellowship, we have certain creeds of 
acknowledged weight, to be used not as tests, but as a 
testimony ; and we have also, in ecclesiastical councils 
and associations of churches, recognized organs for 
expressing the fellowship and declaring the faith held 
by our churches to be essential, as well as guarding the 
liberty of thought generally allowed in our churches. 
Therefore, in the administration of all our benevolent 
societies, and in the common work of our churches, the 
utmost care should be exercised in the application of 
the foregoing principles." 

At the council of 1886 the unanimous action taken 
upon ministerial standing was as follows : 

''Resolved, That standing In the Congregational 
ministry Is acquired by the fulfillment of these three 
conditions, namely, (i) membership In a Congrega- 
tional church ; (2) ordination to the Christian ministry ; 
and (3) reception as an ordained minister into the fel- 
lowship of the Congregational churches In accordance 
with the usage of the State or territorial organization 
of churches in which the applicant may reside ; and 
such standing Is to be continued In accordance with 
these usages, It being understood that a pro re nata 
council Is the ultimate resort In all cases In question." 

The council of 1871 declared that every minister 
ought to be In orderly connection with some ministerial 
or ecclesiastical organization capable of certifying 
to his continued standing. Upon this principle the 
roll of ministers published In the Year Book Is com- 
piled, the Kst for each State being furnished by the 



528 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

State organization, which the secretary of the council 
has no authority whatever to alter, and regarding 
which the council itself has no judicial authority. 

The annual Year Book, compiled and published 
under the direction of the council, contains the 
statistics of the churches throughout the country, more 
exhaustively and completely than is found in any other 
similar compilation ; the alphabetical list of recognized 
ministers, that of licentiates and that of our foreign 
missionaries ; the lists of professors and students, with 
terms and vacations, in our theological seminaries ; 
the organization of each of our national benevolent 
societies ; careful and accurate memorials of deceased 
ministers ; tables of ordinations, installations and dis- 
missals ; lists and officials of Congregational clubs and 
other similar valuable information. The expense 
being paid for by the churches through their State 
organizations, a copy is sent to every minister upon 
the roll and a copy to each church. This work has 
been of inestimable advantage in promoting the unity 
of the churches, as was expected and intended 
when the statistical system was planned over thirty 
years ago. 

At the session of the council in 1880 it seemed that 
some brief statement of doctrinal faith mio^ht be useful 
for instruction and edification in our churches. The 
broad and extended declaration made at Plymouth 
in 1865 was not formulated with a view to use in the 
reception of members or for church manuals. A 
committee of seven was thereupon appointed, which 
should, after careful deliberation after the council had 
adjourned, select twenty-five men "of piety and ability, 
well versed in the truths of the Bible and representing 



VISIBLE UNITY. 529 

different shades of thought among us, who may be 
willing to confer and act together as a commission to 
propose in the form of a creed or catechism, or both, 
a simple, clear and comprehensive exposition of the 
truths of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, for 
the instruction and edification of our churches." This 
commission was not to report the result of their work 
to the council, but to issue it to the world, '' to carry 
such weight of authority as the character of the com- 
mission and the intrinsic merit of their exposition of 
truth may command." This method was chosen so as 
to avoid any appearance of assumed authority by the 
council to legislate in matters of faith. Of the twenty- 
five eminent brethren selected, Rev. Julius H. Seelye, 
President of Amherst College, was chairman. Twenty- 
two of the twenty-five found themselves able to agree. 
The declaration then put forth, although it has not 
had indorsement by the council, has met with exten- 
sive favor, as declaring the general consensus of doc- 
trine held by our churches, and is used by many of 
them as a standard. 

The declaration we give in full as follows : 

I. We believe in one God, the Father Ahnighty, Maker of heaven 
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ; 

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who is of one sub- 
stance with the Father ; by whom all things were made ; 

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who is sent 
from the Father and Son, and who together with the Father and 
Son is worshiped and glorified. 

II. We believe that the Providence of God, by which He executes 
His eternal purposes in the government of the world, is in and over 
all events ; yet so that the freedom and responsibility of man are 
not impaired, and sin is the act of the creature alone, 

III. We believe that man was made in the image of God, that he 



530 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

might know, love and obey God, and enjoj Him forever ; that our 
first parents by disobedience fell under the righteous condemnation 
of God ; and that all men are so alienated from God that there is 
no salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through God's 
redeeming grace. 

IV. We believe that God would have all men return to Him; 
that to this end He has made Himself known, not only through the 
works of nature, the course of His providence and the consciences 
of men, but also through supernatural revelations made especially 
to a chosen people, and above all, when the fullness of tirae was 
come, through Jesus Christ His Son. 

V. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments are the records of God's revelations of Himself in the work 
of redemption ; that they were written by men under the special 
guidance of the Holy Spirit; that they are able to make wise unto 
salvation ; and that they constitute the authoritative standard by 
which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated 
and judged. 

VI. We believe that the love of God to sinful men has found its 
highest expression in the redemptive work of His Son ; who became 
man, uniting His divine nature with our human nature in one per- 
son ; who was tempted like other men, yet without sin ; who by His 
humiliation, His holy obedience. His sufferings. His death on the 
cross and His resurrection, became a perfect Redeemer ; whose 
sacrifice of Himself for the sins of the world declares the righteous- 
ness of God, and is the sole and sufficient ground of forgiveness 
and of reconciliation with him. 

VII. We believe that Jesus Christ, after he had risen from the 
dead, ascended into heaven, where, as the one Mediator between 
God and man. He carries forward His work of saving men ; that He 
sends the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and to lead them to 
repentance and faith ; and that those who through renewing grace 
turn to righteousness, and trust in Jesus Christ as their Redeemer, 
receive for His sake the forgiveness of their sins, and are made the 
children of God. 

VIII. We believe that those who are thus regenerated and justi- 
fied grow in sanctified character through fellowship with Christ, the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and obedience to the truth; that 
a holy life is the fruit and evidence of saving faith ; and that the 



VISIBLE UNITY. 53 1 

believer's hope of continuance in such a Hfe is in the preserving 
grace of God. 

IX. We believe that Jesus Christ came to estabHsh among men 
the kingdom of God, the reign of truth and love, righteousness and 
peace ; that to Jesus Christ, the Head of this kingdom, Christians 
are directly responsible in faith and conduct ; and that to Him all 
have immediate access without mediatorial or priestly intervention. 

X. We believe that the church of Christ, invisible and spiritual, 
comprises all true believers, whose duty it is to associate themselves 
in churches, for the maintenance of worship, for the promotion of 
spiritual growth and fellowship and for the conversion of men ; 
that these churches, under the guidance of the Holy Scriptures and 
in fellowship with one another, may determine — each for itself — 
their organization, statements of belief and forms of worship ; may 
appoint and set apart their own ministers, and should co-operate in 
the work which Christ has committed to them for the furtherance 
of the gospel throughout the world. 

XI. We believe in the observance of the Lord's Day as a day 
of holy rest arid worship ; in the ministry of the Word ; and in the 
two Sacraments which Christ has appointed for His Church : Bap- 
tism, to be administered to believers and their children, as the sign 
of cleansing from sin, of union to Christ, and of the impartation of 
the Holy Spirit ; and the Lord's Supper, as a symbol of His atoning 
death,' a seal of its efficacy and a means whereby He confirms and 
strengthens the spiritual union and communion of believers with 
Himself. 

XII. We believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of 
Christ over all the earth ; in the glorious appearing of the great 
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ; in the resurrection of the dead, 
and in a final judgment, the issues of which are everlasting punish- 
ment and everlasting life. 

The result of the establishment of the National 
Council has been most helpful. The Council Is the 
recognized declaration of the unity of the churches. 
It has shown that a national union of churches 
throughout a continent, each of which preserves the 
inalienable right of local self-government, can exist 



532 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

without domination over churches, and without danger 
of assuming authority. It has shown that mutual fel- 
lowship and communion in Christian love form a tie 
as strong as that of any ecclesiastical machinery. It 
has shown that unity may be preserved by brotherly 
consultation without the penalties of judicial pro- 
cedure. It has given evidence that, with the posses- 
sion of a common faith, co-operation in the great 
enterprises of the gospel is the strongest bond of 
fraternity under Christ, 

The National Council, made up in every case of 
messengers sent by the churches, has, by its enrollment 
of brethren in unity, given courage to many an obscure 
toiler in the hard places of Christian work, who has 
felt that he was not overlooked by the great brother- 
hood ; and courage to many a hidden church, which 
finds itself recognized as the peer of the strongest in 
worldly position or influence or wealth. 

The Council has given the judgment of the churches' 
messengers, after wise and prayerful deliberation and 
with light coming from every part of the country, upon 
subjects of weighty import ; its judgment having the 
force contained in the character of the men who have 
expressed it, and of the reasonableness found in the 
opinions thus sent forth ; and these opinions have 
been received with a favor and respect which have shown 
the steadily growing confidence of the churches in this 
method of consultation upon interests dear to their 
hearts. 

The Council has also tended to break the provin- 
cialism of methods of thought and action which pre- 
vailed to some extent in early days by reason of the 
isolation of groups of churches. It has tended to 



VISIBLE UNITY. 



533 



blend us Into a national life which absorbs the good 
found in every section and in all our schools of thought. 
In our outward growth it is noticeable that since the 
organization of the Council we have made a net in- 
crease of more than two thousand churches, our church 
membership has advanced more than seventy per 
cent, our enrollment in Sunday schools has increased 




.:::^'i!i^^^ii^.<^^-^^a^o^^f_ 



MEETING-HOUSE OF FIRST CHURCH, OAKLAND, CAL. 

by more than ninety per cent., and the benevolent 
contributions, apart from all local church support, 
have nearly trebled. 

The next session of the National Council Is appointed 
to be held In San Francisco. I twill take place exactly 
two and three-quarter centuries from the date of the Pil- 
grim landing. With much to retard our growth, by 
reason of such lack of denominational interest that 
our fathers deliberately sent much of our strength into 



534 CONGREGATIONALISTS IN AMERICA. 

Other denominations of Christians, by reason of useless 
theological dissensions in times past, and by reason of 
former lack of concentrated energy, yet the Council 
will represent, when it meets in that city in 1895, more 
than five thousand churches and more than half a mil- 
lion of communicants. Forty-nine States and Terri- 
tories will report their Congregational churches. From 
the beginning at Plymouth, in numbers hardly to be 
noticed, but mighty in seminal principle, it is proper 
that the body of churches should at last connect the 
surf of the Atlantic with the waves of the Pacific, and 
sit together in loving communion by the Golden Gate. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN CONGREGATIONAL HISTORY. 



1582. Browne's "Statement of Congregational Principles " published. 

1 583. John Coppin and Elias Thacker hanged at Bury St. Edmunds, England. 
1586. John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe imprisoned in London. 

1588. Martin Mar-prelate Tracts. 

1 589. " A True Description, out of the Word of God, of the Visible Church," 

published in London. 

1592. First known modern Congregational church completely and formally 

organized in London. 

1593. John Greenwood, iJenry Barrowe and John Penry hanged : the last of 

the Congregational martyrs put to death. Fifty-six members of 
the first Congregational church, London, imprisoned. 

1595. First Congregational church regathered in Amsterdam, Holland. 

1596. "A True Confession of the Faith" of the London-Amsterdam 

Church published. 
1598. The same " True Confession " translated into Latin and published. 

1602. Congregational church organized at Gainsborough, England. 

1603. Death of Elizabeth and accession of James I. Petition of Amsterdam 

Church to King James I., stating the " Points of Difference between 
Congregationalism and the Church of England." 

1606. Scrooby Church organized, John Robinson, Pastor. Gainsborough 
Church removes to Amsterdam. 

1607-08. Scrooby Church removes to Amsterdam. 

1609. John Robinson, with the Pilgrims of Scrooby Church, settles in Leyden. 

161 1. King James' Version of the Bible published. 

1616. Congregational church organized at Southwark, London. 

1617. Pilgrims of Leyden petition King James for permission to settle in 

America. 
1618-19. The Synod of Dort, at Dordrecht, Holland. 

1620. Pilgrims left Leyden, July 21 ; sailed from Plymouth, September 16; 

signed civil compact in the " Mayflower," November 21 ; landed at 
Plymouth, Mass., December 11 (O. S.), December 21 (N. S.) 

162 1. Governor Carver died ; William Bradford chosen governor of Pilgrim 

Colony. 

1624. First Puritan settlement in New England, at Cape Ann. 

1625. John Robinson died in Leyden. Death of James I. and accession of 

Charles I. 
1628. The Company of Massachusetts Bay formed in England, Captain 
Endecott arrived at Salem. William Laud made Bishop of London. 

535 



536 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1629. Six vessels, with emigrants from England, arrived at Salem. Second 

Congregational church in America, formed at Salem, Mass. 
Charter granted to Massachusetts. 

1630, First Church, Dorchester, Mass., organized at Plymouth, England, 

landed at Nantasket, May 30. John Wmthrop, with a fleet of ves- 
sels, arrived in Massachusetts Bay. The Massachusetts charter 
brought to New England. First Church organized at Charlestown, 
and First Church, Watertown, July 30. First General Court, Au- 
gust 23. John Winthrop elected governor. Settlement of Boston. 

1632. Church at Charlestown removed to Boston. Present First Church, 

Charlestown, oiganized November 23. First Church, Lynn, and 
First Church, Roxbury, organized. 

1633. John Cotton, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone arrived at Boston. 

Laud made Archbishop of Canterbury. First parish in New 
Hampshire, at Dover. First Church formed in connection with the 
parish, 1638. 

1635. Colonies from Dorchester and Watertown removed to Connecticut. 

1636. First Church in Dorchester, Mass., organized in Plymouth, England, 

1630, fully established at Windsor, Conn. First Church, Cam- 
bridge, organized. Thomas Hooker, with his company, an organ- 
ized church, emigrated from Cambridge, Mass., to Hartford, Conn. 
Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts Colony. Sir Henry 
Vane chosen governor. The Hutchinson controversy. Harvard 
College founded. Winthrop again elected governor. 

1637. First General Synod of New England convened at Cambridge by the 

General Court. It condemned Antinomianism. John Davenport 
and company arrived at Boston from England. Pequot War. 

1638. Mrs. Hutchinson excommunicated from the Boston Church, and ban- 

ished from the colony. New Haven Colony founded by Davenport 
and his company. 
1641. "Body of Liberties," adopted by the General Court of Massachusetts. 
New Hampshire towns incorporated into Massachusetts Colony. 

1643. Westminster Assembly convened in England by Parliament. Minis- 

terial Convention at Cambridge, Mass. Confederation of the four 
colonies : Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. 

1644. Archbishop Laud executed. 

1645. Battle of Naseby, insuring the downfall of the English Monarchy. 

Hooker's " Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline " approved by 
the ministers of the New England colonies. 
1646-48. John Eliot began preaching to the Indians. General American 
Synod at Cambridge setting forth platform of Church Polity. 

1647. System of common schools adopted by General Court of Massachusetts. 

1648. Westminster Confession of Faith approved by Parliament. 

1649. England proclaims itself a Commonwealth. 

1650. Second Church, Boston, organized. 

1651. General Court of Massachusetts approved Cambridge Platform. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 537 

1654. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. 

1657, Ministerial Convention at Boston. Halfway Covenant recommended. 

Quakers imprisoned in Boston. 

1658. General Synod at Savoy Palace, London, setting forth amended 

Westminster Confession and Congregational Platform of Church 
Order. Oliver Cromwell died. 

1660. Restoration of monarchy in England. Charles H. made king. 

1662. Massachusetts Synod at Boston approved Halfway Covenant. Con- 
necticut and New Haven Colonies united. 

1664. Church at Barrington organized ; the oldest existing Congregational 
church in Rhode Island . 

1669. Old South Church, Boston, organized. 

1670. Second Church, Hartford, Conn., organized. 

1673. Church in Agamenticus, now York, Me., organized (possibly much 
earlier), the oldest existing Congregational church in that State, 
then a part of Massachusetts. 

1674-76. King Philip's War. 

1679-80. Massachusetts Synod at Boston, known as the Reforming Synod. 

1682. Cotton Mather ordained colleague pastor of Second Church, Boston. 

1684. Charter of Massachusetts Colony vacated. 

1685. James H., king of England. Sir Edmund Andros seized Old South 

Meeting-house, Boston, for Episcopal services. 

1689. William and Mary made king and queen of England. Andros 

imprisoned, and provisional government formed in Massachusetts. 
Simon Bradstreet, governor. King's Chapel erected for Episco-pal 
worship. Toleration Act passed by English Parliament, afford- 
ing legal protection to Nonconformists. 

1690. Association of ministers of Boston and vicinity formed ; the tirst 

permanent District Association in Massachusetts. 

1691. Heads of Agreement adopted, in London, between Presbyterians and 

Congregationalists. Plymouth Colony connected with Massa- 
chusetts. 

1692. William Phips, first governor of Massachusets under new charter. 

Twenty persons put to death at Salem for witchcraft. Episco- 
palians, Baptists and Quakers exempted from taxes for the support 
of Congregational churches in Massachusetts. 
1699. Brattle Street Church, Boston, organized. 

1 701. Yale College founded. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 

organized in England. 

1702. Anne, queen of England. 

1705. " Proposals," issued by representatives of Massachusetts ministerial 
associations. 

1708. Connecticut Synod at Saybrook issued the Saybrook Platform. 

1709. General Association of Connecticut ministers organized : the first 

State organization. 
171 3. Peace of Utrecht. 



538 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1714. George L, king of England. 

1716. Yale College located in New Haven. 

1722. Cutler, rector of Yale College, and others, became Episcopalians. 

1723. Increase Mather died. 

1725. Final and unsuccessful effort of General Court of Massachusetts to 
call a synod of churches. 

1727. Jonathan Edwards ordained colleague pastor at Northampton. 

George IL, king of England. 

1728. Cotton Mather died. 

1735. Revival of religion at Northampton. 
1738. George Whitefield's first visit to America. 

1740. Whitefield visited Boston and other parts of New England. 
1740-42. Great revival of religion in New England. 

1741. Gilbert Tennent preached in Boston. 

1742. John Davenport by his preaching made disturbances in Connecticut 

and Massachusetts. Separatist churches formed. 
1744-45, Whitefield's second visit to New England. 
1750. Jonathan Edwards, forced to leave the Church at Northampton, went 

to Stockbridge, a missionary to the Indians. 
1757- Jonathan Edwards died. 
1762. First Church organized in Vermont, at Bennington. 

1765. Stamp Act passed. 

1766. Stamp Act repealed. 

1769. Dartmouth College founded. 

1770. Samuel Hopkins settled at Newport, R. I. 
1773- The Boston Tea Party. 

1775, Commencement of War of the Revolution. 

1778. Phillips Academy, Andover, founded. Phillips Academy, Exeter, 

N. H., chartered 1781. 
1780. Massachusetts Bill of Rights enacted ; amended, guaranteeing to 

every denomination of Christians equal protection in law, 1834. 

1782. James Freeman chosen rector of King's Chapel; the church under 

him became Unitarian. 

1783. End of the War of the Revolution. 

1784. Saybrook Platform, by revision of statutes, ceased to be civil law in 

Connecticut. 

1786. Massachusetts was granted the right to purchase from the Indians 
Western New York. 

1790. Methodism first appears in Massachusetts. Grant of Western Re- 
serve to Connecticut. 

1793. Williams College chartered. 

1794. Bowdoin College chartered. 

1795. The London Missionary Society instituted. General Convention of 

Congregational ministers and churches in Vermont organized. 

1796. First Congregational church in Ohio, at Marietta. 
1798. Connecticut Missionary Society formed. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 539 

1799. Massachusetts Missionary Society formed. 

1800. Middlebury College founded. 

1 801. Plan of Union adopted between the General Congregational Associa- 

tion of Connecticut and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church. Congregational Church organized in Quebec, the first in 
Lower Canada. 

1803. General Association of Massachusetts ministers formed. General 
Conference of churches, i860. Union of Association and Confer- 
ence, 1868. 

1805. Henry Ware chosen professor of divinity at Harvard. First Sunday 
school in Canada organized in connection with Congregational 
church in Quebec. 

1808. The first theological seminary opened at Andover, Mass. 

1809. Park Street Church, Boston, organized. New Hampshire Associa- 

tion and Rhode Island Consociation organized. Muskingum 
(O.) Association formed. 

1 8 10. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established 

by the General Association of Massachusetts. Dr. Kirkland 
elected president of Harvard. First Sunday school in Massachu- 
setts, at Beverly. 

181 5. Unitarianism avowed by some Massachusetts Congregationalists. 

1816, American Education Society formed ; united with Western College 

Society in 1874; with New West Education Commission in 1893. 
Bangor Theological Seminary began. Boston Recorder began. 

1818. New constitution adopted by the State of Connecticut, making all re- 

ligious associations purely voluntary. 

1 8 19. Congregational church organized at Southwold, the first in Upper 

Canada. 

1 82 1. Amherst College founded. 

1822. Theological department opened at Yale College. 

1826. American Home Missionary Society instituted. First State Confer- 
ence of churches organized in Maine. 

1 83 1. Congregational Union of England and Wales organized. 

1832. Massachusetts Sabbath-school Society organized. 

1833. Declaration of Faith of the Congregational churches of England and 

Wales, with Principles of Church Order and Discipline. Oberlin 
College founded. 

1834. General Association of New York organized. 

1835. Illinois College founded. 

1837. Presb^'terian General Assembly abrogated Plan of Union. 

1838. New School Presbyterian Church organized. 

1840. General Association of Iowa and Wisconsin Convention formed. 
1842, General Association of Michigan formed. 
1844. General Association of Illinois formed. 

1846. Convention of Western Congregational churches at Michigan City, 
Mich. American Missionary Association organized. 



540 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1847. Beloit College founded. 

1848. Iowa College founded. Oregon Association formed. 

1852. American General Convention of Congregational Churches at Albany, 

N. Y. End of Plan of Union. Ohio Association organized. 

1853. Congregational Church-building Society formed. 

1855. Kansas Association organized. 

1856. Minnesota Association organized. 

1857. California and Nebraska associations organized. 

1858. Chicago Theological Seminary founded. Indiana Association organ- 

ized. 
i860. Congregational College of British North America founded ; affiliated 

with McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1864. 
1 861. Beginning of Civil War. 
1865. Close of Civil War. Missouri Association organized. General 

American Council of Congregational Churches, Boston. Burial 

Hill Declaration of Faith adopted. 

1867. Connecticut Conference organized. 

1868. Colorado Association organized. 

1869. New Jersey Association organized. 

1870. Louisiana Association organized. 

1 87 1. National Council established at Oberlin, O., for triennial meetings. 

South Dakota and Tennessee associations organized. 
1873. Congregational House, Boston, occupied by benevolent societies and 

other Congregational organizations. 
1876. Alabama Association organized. 

1878. Georgia Association organized. 

1879. North Carolina Conference organized. 

1881. First Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, formed at Willis- 

ton Congregational Church, Portland, Me. New West Education 
Commission organized ; united with American Education Society, 

1893. 

1882. Utah Association organized. 

1883. Declaration of Faith by a Creed Commission appointed by the 

National Council. Florida and Mississippi associations and North 
Dakota Conference organized. 

1884. Arizona and New Mexico Association and Montana Conference 

organized. 

1886. Pennsylvania Association organized. 

1887. Arkansas and Southern California associations organized. 

1889. Washington Association organized. 

1890. Georgia Convention and Oklahoma Association organized. 

1891. First International Congregational Council, London, England, all 

parts of the world being represented. 

1892. Wyoming Association organized. 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



Abbott, Abiel, 294 
Abbott, B. v., 483 
Abbott, Jacob, 488 
Abbott, Lyman, 479, 487 
Abbott, Samuel, 287, 288 
Abeel, David, 337 
Adams, Ephraim, 437 
Adams, Harvey, 437 
Adams, Jacob, 383 
Adams, John, 266, 267, 269 
Adams, Nehemiah, 487 
Adams, Samuel, 268 
Addington, Isaac, 220 
Ainsworth, Henry, 75, 468 
Alden, Ebenezer, Jr., 437 
Alden, E. K., 342 
Allen, James, 180, 208, 212, 216 
Allen, Thomas, 274 
AUerton, Isaac, 90, 99, 112 
Alline, Henry, 409 
Anderson, A. J., 380 
Anderson, Rufus, 484 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 196 
Arabella, Lady, 114 
Armstrong, S. C, 355, 356 
Aspinwall, William, 114 
Atkinson, G. H., 380, 443, 524 
Atkinson, Timothy, 474 

Bachelor, Stephen, 159 

Bacon, B. W., 483 

Bacon, Leonard, 387, 398-400, 469, 479, 490, 512, 

516 
Badger, Joseph, 324 
Baldwin, C. C, 484 
Baldwin, Theron, 369, 372, 430 
Barbour, W. M., 410 
Barnabas, Joseph, 42-46 
Barnes, Albert, 329 
Barnes, Romulus, 430 
Barr, Thomas, 325 
Barrowe, Henry, 62, 63, 66, 71, 468 
Barrows, E. P., 387, 430 
Barstow, A. C, 523 
Bartlet, William, 287, 288 
Bartlett, S. C, 430, 523 
Bascom, Flavel, 430 
Baxter, Richard, 471 
Beard, R. A., 380 



Beecher, Edward, 369 

Beecher, H. W„ 398, 400, 479, 482, 486 

Beecher, Lyman, 278, 279, 306, 307, 309, 329, 

399 
Belcher, Gov., 248 
Belknap, Jeremy, 292 
Bellamy, Joseph, 280, 281 
Belsham, Thomas, 283, 294, 298, 299 
Benton, J. A., 390 
Biddle, John, 282 
Bingham, Hiram, 484 
Bird, Isaac, 337 
Bishop, Bridget, 200 
Bissell, E. C, 483 
Blackstone, William, 114 
Bliss, C. R., 344 
Blodget, Henry, 484 
Boardman, D. B., 389 
Bonar, Horatius, 486 
Bouton, Nathaniel, 346 
Bowdoin, James, 366 
Bowman, Christopher, 67 
Boynton, G. M, 488, 453 
Bradford, William, 75, 78, 89-91, 102, 107 
Bradstreet, Simon, 185, 198, 202 
Brainerd, David, 261 
Brattle, Thomas, 209, 211 
Brattle, William, 209, 213 
Breck, Daniel, 420 

Brewster, William, 72-74, 78, 81, 97, 98, 153 
Bridgman, E. C, 337 
Bridgman, H. A., v, 467 
Bright, Francis, 102 
Brook, Lord, 158 
Brooks, W. M., 376, 377 
Brown, J. B., 483 
Brown, John, 376 
Brown, Moses, 287, 288 
Brown, Phoebe H., 485 
Brown, Tutor, 231 
Brown, Two Brothers, 108, 109 
Browne, Robert, 58-61, 468 
Buckingham, Thomas, 223 
Buckingham, W. A., 514 
Buckminster, J. S,, 284, 286, 292, 294 
Budington, W. L, 523, 524 
Bulkeley, Peter, 134 
BuUard, Artemas, 426 
Bullard, Asa, 349, 453, 488 



541 



542 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



Bunyan, John, 471, 488 
Burdett, George, 158 
Burnham, Charles, 436 
Burnham, Samuel, 474 
Burr, Jonathan, 295 
Burroughs, George, 201 
Burton, N. S., 430 
Bushnell, Horace, 395-397, 482 
Butterfield, H. Q., 373, 376 
Byington, E. H., 487 
Byles, Mather, 274 

Cable, G. W., 488 

Carleton, William, 378, 379 

Carter, William, 430 

Cartwright, Thomas, 56, 58 

Carver, John, 80, 82, 88, 90 

Cave, Alfred, 483 

Chadbourne, P. A., 430 

Chalmers, Thomas, 264 

Channing, W. E., 284, 291, 292, 299, 305, 306, 

3071 316 
Chapin, E. L., 373 
Chauncey, Charles, 154, 174, 179, 180 
Chauncey, Dr. Charles, 258, 267, 277, 280, 281 
Cheever, G. B., 311 
Choate, Rufus, 365 
Christison, Wenlock, 183 
Clark, A. R., 423 
Clark, Dorus, 473 
Clark, F. E., v, 348, 446, 487 
Clark, J. L., 274, 360, 368, 402, 473 
Clark, N. G., 341 
Clarke, Harvey, 380 
Clarke, John, 163, i^ 
Clarke, John, 284 
Clyfton, Richard, 73 
Cobbett, Thomas, 147 
Codman, John, 292, 295 
Coffin, C. C, 488 

Colmar, Benjamin, 211, 213-216, 218-231, 245 
Conant, Roger, 100, loi 
Cook, E. W., 407 
Cooke, Parsons, 311, 474 
Cooper, Ezekiel, 252 
Coppin, J., 57, 61, 69 
Cornelius, the Centurion, 41 
Cornelius, Elias, 425, 430 
Cotton, John, 106, 119, 120, 122-125, i30t 132-134? 

137-140, 146-148, 171, 174, 197, 266, 267, 469 
Cotton, John, Jr., 153 
Cradock, Matthew, 11 1 
Cranfield, Lieut.-Gov., 160 
Cromwell, Oliver, 139 
Crooks, J. F., 430 
Curliss, S. J., 389. 483 
Cashing, Christopher, 474 
Cushman, Robert, 80, 81, 84, 91 
Cutler, Carroll, 430 
Cutler, Manasseh, 419, 420 
Cutler, Timothy, 231-233 



Dale, R. W., 483 

Dalton, Timothy, 159 

Dane, Nathan, 429 

Davenport, James, 254, 255, 258 

Davenport, John, 137, 139, 141, 156, 172, 180, 187, 

469 
Davis, Nicholas, 182 
Day, G. E., 387, 485 
Day, H. N., 430 
De Foe, Daniel, 488 
Delamater, Dr., 430 

Dexter, H. M., 65, 219, 360, 401, 469, 473, 474 
Dickey, C. A., 426 
Dickey, J. M., 427 
Doane, Thomas, 379 
Doddridge, Philip, 485 
Drury, Samuel, 378 
Dudley, Samuel, 160 
Dudley, Thomas, 115, 228 
Duffield, George, 329 
Duncan, W. A., 452 
Dunning, A. E., xiv, 350, 451 
Dunster, Henry, 167 
Durant, H. F., 384, 385 
Duryea, J. T., 487 
Dwight, H. G.O., 337 
D wight, S. E., 307 
Dwight, Timothy, 283, 294, 485 
Dwight, Timothy, 364, 388, 483 
Dwight, W. T., 510 
Dyer, Mary, 182 

Eames, Capt., 143 

Eaton, E. D,, 372 

Eaton, J. F., 380 

Eaton, Samuel, 156, 274 

Eaton, Theophilus, 137 

Eckley, Joseph, 291 

Edson, H. K., 438 

Edward VI., 54 

Edwards, Jonathan, 235-237, 240, 241-245, 248, 258, 

261-263, 278, 294, 320, 321, 448, 449, 481 
Eells, Gushing, 380, 442 
Eells, Edwin, 443 
Eells, Myron, 443 
Elizabeth, Queen, 54, 55, 61 
Eliot, Andrew, 296 
Eliot, John, iv, 120, 121, 167-169 
Ellis, G. E., 303-305, 314, 315 
Ellis, J. M., 430 
Ely, R. T., 487 
Emerson, Oliver, 436 
Emerson, R. W., 312 
Emerson, William, 284, 292 
Emlyn, Thomas, 282 

Emmons, Nathaniel, 278, 279, 281, 283, 285, 4G2 
Endecott, John, loi, 102, 105, 109, 125, 181 
Evarts, Jeremiah, 299 

Fairbairn, a. M., 483 
Fairchild, J. H., 482 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



543 



Fairfield, M. W., 373 

Farnham, Lucian, 430 

Fee, J. G., 355 

Finney, C. G., 328, 370, 482, 524 

Fisher, G. P., 387, 482 

Fisk, F. W., 389 

Fiske, Fidelia, 385 

Fitch, Ebenezer, 365 

Fitz, Richard, 57 

Flagg, R. C, 375 

Fox, George, 181 

Free, A. T., 379 

Freeman, James, 281, 282, 298 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 342 

Frost, W. G., 375 

Fuller, Samuel, 102, 105, 112 

Gage, Gen., 270, 271 

Gager, William, 114 

Garfield, J. A., 366 

Gaston, G. A., 376, 377 

Gates, G. A., 373 

Gaylord, Reuben, 436 

Gibson, Richard, 162 

Giddings, J. R., 424, 426 

Giddings, S. R., 426, 430, 436 

Gilbert, Ralegh, 160 

Gladden, Washington, 485, 487 

Goodell, C. L., 405 

Goodell, William, 337, 484 

Goodrich, C. A., 387 

Goodwin, E. P., 403 

Goodwin, John, 469 

Goodwin, William, 177 

Gookin, Daniel, 169 

Gorges, Capt. Robert, 94 

Gorges, Ferdinando, 94, 157 

Gorton, Samuel, 164 

Granger, Dr., 438 

Grant, Miss, 383 

Greene, David, 486 

Greene, D. €., 338 

Greene, J. K., 484 

Greenwood, F. W. P., 296, 305 

Greenwood, John, 62, 63, 66-71, 468 

Griffin, E. D., 292, 365 

Grosvenor, Mason, 430 

Grout, Lewis, 484 

Gulliver, J. P., 521 

Gunsaulus, F. W., 488 

Hale, Albert, 430 
Hale, E, E., 317 
Hall, Gordon, 335-33? 
Hamlin, Cyrus, 484 
Hammond, C. G., 514 
Hammond, William, 437 
Hancock, John, 270 
Hand, Daniel, 357 
Hardy, Alpheus, 339 
Hardy, A. S., 488 



Harris, Samuel, 387, 482 

Harrison, Robert, 468 

Hartranft, C. D. 388 

Hasseltine, Ann C, 382 

Hatfield, E. F.,382, 426 

Haynes, John, 121 

Hazen, H. A., 475 

Hempstead, Stephen, 426 

Henry VIII., 54 

Herrick, George, 484 

Hiacoomes, 168 

Hickok, L. P., 430, 482 

Higginson, Francis, 102-106 

Higginson, John, 156, 157, 208, 212 

Hill, H. A., 482 

Hill, J. J., 437 

Hincks, E. Y., 483 

Hitchcock, A. B., 436 

Hitchcock, H. P., 430 

Hitchcock, Edward, 367 

Hitchcock, L. A., 362 

Hobart, Peter, 143 

Hobbomok, 166 

Holbrook, J. C., 436, 437 

Holland, J. G., 488 

Hollis. Thomas, 286 

Holman, Ezekiel, 163 

Holmes, Samuel, 523 

Holton, E. D., 524 

Hooke, D. B., 477 

Hooke, William, 154 

Hooker, Thomas, iv, 120, 121, 123-126, 128, 129, 

i33i 134^ 137-139, i45> 172, 177. 266, 469 
Hopkins, Mark, 342, 365, 366, 482 
Hopkins, Samuel, 278, 279, 281, 286 
Horton, R. F., 483 

Howard, O. O., xxii, 354, 367, 523, 524 
Howe, Joseph, 274 
Hubbard, William, 208 
Hudson, David, 429 
Hungerford, Edward, 487 
Hunt, John, 274 
Huntington, Joshua, 291 
Hutchinson, Ann, 130, 132, 133, 135, 163 
Hutchinson, Gov., 201 
Hutchinson, Horace, 437 

Ingalls, F. T., 378 

Jackson, G, A., 488 

Jackson, S. N., 469 

Jacob, Henry, 153, 162 

James I., 72 

James, Thomas, 116 

Jenner, Thomas, 162 

Jenney, Elisha, 430 

John, the Apostle, 40 

Johnson, Francis, 66, d"], 71, 77, 106 

Johnson, George, 71, 77 

Johnson, Isaac, 114 

Johnson, Mr., 231 



544 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



Jones, John, 157 
Jones, John, 410 
Judson, Adoniram, 335-337 
Judson, Ann H., 382 

Keniston. George, 67 
King, Joseph, 337 
Kingsley, W. M., 475 
Kirby, William, 430 
Kirk, E. N., 487 
Kirkland, J. T., 293, 296 
Knollys, Hanserd, 158, 159, 489 
Kuenen, Dr., 98 

Ladd, G. T., 483 

Lane, Daniel, 437 

Langworthy, I. P., 360, 474 

Larkam, Thomas, 159 

Larned, Sylvester, 425 

Laud, William, 120, 126, 158, 265, 266 

Laurie, Thomas, 483 

Leddra, William, 183 

Legge, James, 483 

Lee, Nicholas, 67 

Lenthall, Robert, 164 

Leverett, John, 209, 229 

Leverich, William, 158 

Lindsay, Theophilus, 298 

Locke, John, 275, 469 

Long, Clement, 430 

Loomis, Elias, 430 

Loomis, S. L., 487 

Lothrop, John, 153 

Lucius, of Gyrene, 43 

Lum, S. Y., 439 

Lulher, Martin, 53 

Lyford, John, 95, 96, 100, loi 

Lyman. Joseph, 291, 342 

Lyon, Mary, 383, 384, 385 

Mabie, H. W., 479 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 275 

Magoun, G. F., 373 

Mahan, Asa, 371 

Manaen, 43 

Mary, Queen, 54 

Mark, John, 43, 44 

Mason, John, 157 

Mason, Lowell, 486 

Massasoit, 90, 91 

Mather, Cotton, 134, 153, 173, 197, 198, 199, 200, 

202, 206, 208, 210, 213, 216, 218, 222, 224, 229, 

230, 233, 234, 300, 469 
Mather, Increase, 180, 191, 194, 197-199, 202, 208- 

210, 212-216, 220, 202, 224, 228, 229, 232, 239, 

256, 469, 494 
Mather, Richard, 138, 146-149, 174, 176 
Mather, Samuel, 254 
Matthias, 36 
Maud, Daniel, 159 
Maverick, John, m 



May, Sophie, 488 

Mayhew, Jonathan, 267, 275, 280 

Mayhew, Thomas, 168 

McVicar, Peter, 376 

Mead, C. M., 483 

Mead, Mrs. E. M., 385 

Means, J. O., 341 

Merrell, E. H., 375 

Merrill, Selah, 483 

Merriman, W. E., 375, 523 

Miles, Mr., 232, 233 

Miller, R. W., 465 

Miller, Samuel, 307 

Mills, S. J., 335, 425, 436 

Mills, Dr., 385 

Milton, John, 488 

Mitchell, Jonathan, 179, 180, 210 

Mooar, George, 390 

Moody, D. L., 387, 482 

Moody, Joshua, 160 

Moore, L. S., 365, 367 

Morelli, 468 

Morgan, John, 370 

Morrison, N. J., 373, 378 

Morse, Jedediah, 267, 268, 287, 291 

Morse, S. E., 478 

Morton, Charles, 207 

Morton, Nathaniel, no 

Munger, T. T., 482 

Nason, Elias, 486 
Neesima, Joseph, 339, 340 
Nelson, H. A., 426 
Nettleton, Asahel, 309, 485 
Newell, Harriet, 336, 382 
Newell, Samuel, 335, 336 
Nicolas, 42 
Niger, Symeon, 43 
Noble, F. A., 344, 403 
Norris, Edward, 147 
Norris, John, 288 
Norris, Mary, 336 
Norton, A. T., 423 
Norton, John, 147, 179, 185 
Nott, Samuel, 335, 336, 337 
Nowell, Increase, 114 
Noyes, James, 140, 143, 223 
Noyes, Nicholas, 208, 212 

Oakes, UriAn, 194 
Ogden, Amos, 435 
Obookiah, Henry, 337 
Oldham, John, 96 
Otis, James, 275 
Owen, John, 257 

Paine, Joshua, 274 
Palmer, Mrs. A. F., 386 
Palmer, B. M., 425 
Palmer, Ray, 485, 486, 521 
Paris, Mr., 200 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



545 



Park, E. A., 387, 395, 482, 486 

Parker, Chief Justice, 302, 511 

Parker, Edwin O., 487 

Parker, Joseph, 483 

Parker, Theodore, 312 

Parker, Thomas, 140, 143 

Parkman, Francis, 296 

Partridge, Ralph, 146, 153 

Patton, W. W,, 469, 480, 487 

Paul, the Apostle, 44-48 

Pearson, Eliphalet, 286-288, 343 

Pearsons, D. K., 389, 436, 440 

Peet, Stephen, 372 

Peloubet, F. N., 487, 488 

Pemberton, Ebenezer, 209, 216, 218, 230, 274 

Penry, John, 64-66, 69-71 

Perry, D. B., 379 

Peter, the Apostle, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 46 

Peter, Hugh, 121, 132 

Phelps, Austin, 387, 482, 486, 487 

Phelps, Elizabeth S., 488 

Philip, 40, 41 

Phillips, George, 112, 114, 172 

Phillips, John, 287, 288 

Phillips, Phoebe, 288 

Phips, Sir William, 198, 200 

Pierce, G. E., 423 

Pierce, J. D., 403 

Pierrepont, Sarah, 236 

Pierson, Abraham, 164, 186, 220, 364 

Pomeroy, Benjamin, 255, 257 

Pond, Enoch, 387, 469 

Poole, Elizabeth, 154 

Poor, Daniel, 337 

Popham, Capt. George, 160 

Porter, Eliphalet, 293 

Porter, Noah, 387, 482, 510 

Post, T. M., 394, 406, 426 

Potts, W. S., 426 

Pratt. F. G., Jr., 476 

Pratt, W. S., 487 

Prentiss, Elizabeth P., 487 

Priestley, Joseph, 282, 283 

Prince, Thomas, 250-252, 274, 470 

Prudden, Peter, 156 

Putnam, David, 421 

Quint, A. H., v, 360, 402, 469, 473, 474, 489, 516, 
523 

Raikes, Robert, 348, 450 
Randolph, Edward, 191 
Rankin, J. E., 485 
Reed, J. A., 436 
Reed, John, 291 
Reyner, John, 153, 159 
Reynolds, H. R., 483 
Rice, Luther, 336, 337 
Richards, C, H., 487 
Richards, James, 335 
Riggs, Elias, 484 



Riggs, S. R., 485 

Ripley, Erastus, 437, 439 

Robbins, A. B., 437, 438 

Robinson, John, 73, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 93, 95-^8, 

469 
Robinson, William, 182 
Rogers, Mr., 99 
Rogers, Nathaniel, 147 
Ross, A. H., 469, 522 
Rowland, Thomas, 57 
Roy, J. E., iv, 419, 469 
Rutherford, Samuel, 140 

Salter, William, 437, 438 

Saltonstall, Gurdon, 223, 231 

Sargent, Winthrop, 420 

Saul, 42, 43 

Say and Sele, Lord, 124, 139, 158 

Schauffler, William, 484 

Schermerhorn, J. F,, 425 

Scott, H. M., 389 

Seccombe, Charles, 405 

Seccombe, John, 409 

Seelye, J. H., 482, 530 

Sewall, Joseph, 268 

Sewall, Samuel, 202, 210, 213, 220, 230 

Schafer, Helen M., 386 

Shaw, Albert, 476 

Shedd, W. G. T., 387 

Shephard, Thomas, 121, 129, 134, 147, 174, 207 

Sherman, John, 294 

Shipherd, J. J., 369, 373 

Silas, 47 

Skelton, Samuel, 102, 104, 106, 125, 126 

Slocum, W. F., 379 

Smith, Daniel, 425 

Smith, Eli, 337 

Smith, Henry, 174 

Smith, J. C, 342 

Smith, John, 82 

Smith, Ralph, 102, 104, 153 

Smith, Sophia, 385 

Smyth, E. C, 387 

Smyth, John, 72, 77 

Socinus, 282 

Sparks, Jared, 306 

Spaulding, B. A., 437 

Sperry, W. G., 373 

Spring, Samuel, 286, 287 

Squanto, 90, 166 

Standish, Myles, 93, 94 

Stearns, L. F., 387, 482 

Stephen, 40, 42 

Stevenson, Marmaduke, 182 

Stoddard, Solomon, 235, 236, 239 

Stone, Samuel, 120, 121, 123, 129, 139, 174, 177 

Storrs, C. B., 429 

Storrs, R. S., vii, 342, 398, 479, 482 

Story, Daniel, 420 

Stoughton, Lieut.-Gov., 213, 215 

Stowe, C. E., 387 



546 



INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS. 



Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 399, 488 
Street, Nicholas, 154 
Strieby, M. E., 353 
Strong, Josiah, 487 
Strong, J. W., 377, 378, 439 
Strong, Nathan, 485 
Stuart, Moses, 307, 327, 387, 483 
Studley, Daniel, 67 
Sturges, A. A., 438 
Sturtevant, J. M., 369, 394, 430 
Sumner, C. B., 381 
Swayze, Samuel, 435 

Tappan, Benjamin, 485 

Tappan, David, 286 

Tarbox, I. N., 485 

Taylor, Graham, 389 

Taylor, N. W., 278, 312, 328, 387, 3^ 

Taylor, W. M., 482 

Tennent, Gilbert, 250-252, 254 

Tenney, E. P., 488 

Thacher, S. C, 280, 281, 296, 299 

Thacker, Elias, 57, 61, 69 

Thayer, J. H., 483 

Thayer, M. M., 488 

Thompson, A. C, 342,484 

Thompson, J. P., 397, 479, 514 

Thompson, W, A., 438 

Treadwell, John, 342 

Treat, S. B., 341 

Trumbull, H. C, 488 

Turner, Asa, 372, 430, 436, 437, 510 

Turner, E. B., 437 

Twining, Kinsley, 479 

Tyler, Bennett, 312, 388 

Tyler, W. S., 484 

Upham, T. C, 487 

Vane, Sir Henry, 132, 133 
Vassall, William, 144 
Vaughan, Robert, 469 
Vose, J. G., 482 

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 210 
Walker, Williston, 482, 517 
Ward, Joseph, 379, 407 
Ward, Nathaniel, 150, 266 
Ward, W. H., 479, 483 
Wardlaw, Ralph, 469 
Ware, Henry, 286, 287, 307 
Ware, Henry, Jr., 309 
Warham, John, iii, 130, 174 



Warner, A. E., 487 

Warren, J. H., 444 

Washburn, Ichabod, 376 

Watts, Isaac, 485 

Webb, E. B., 523 

Webb, John, 252 

Webber, Dr., 286 

Webster, Daniel, 365 

Wells, Mr., 298 

Wentworth, John, 365 

Wesley, Charles, 246 

Wesley, John, 246 

Weston, Thomas, 81, 82, 84, 91, 92 

Wetmore, Mr., 231 

Wheaton, Laban, 383 

Wheelock, Eleazer, 364, 365 

Wheelright, John, 132, 135, 159, 160, 163 

White, Edward, 483 

White, John, 100, loi, m 

White, William, 90 

Whitefield, George, 236, 240, 246-248, 250-253, 259, 

260 
Whitfield, Henry, 157 
Whitgift, Archbishop, 62, 65 
Whitman, Marcus, 380, 442 
Wick, William, 324 
Wilcox, G. B., 389 
Wilkes, Henry, 410 
Willard, Samuel, 202, 204, 209, 213, 215 
Williams, Roger, 126-128, 163, 164 
Williams, S. W., 484 
Willis, N. P., 477 
Williston, Samuel, 367, 381, 384 
Wilson, John, 112-114, 122, 132, 133, 187 
Winslow, Edward, 78, 90, 112, 153, 168 
Winthrop, John, 111-113, 115, 124, 125, 132, 133, 

135, 143^ 187 
Winthrop, John, Jr., 156 
Wise, John, 197, 207, 218, 219, 270 
Wisner, William, 426 
Wolcott, Samuel, 485 
Woods, Leonard, 288, 307, 387, 382 
Woods, R. A., 487 
Woolsey, T. D., 387, 483 
Worcester, Samuel, 299, 485 
Wright, Elizur, 430 
Wright, G. F., 475, 483 
Wycliffe, John, 53 

Yale, Elihu, 222 
Yates, Richard, 369 
Young, John, 164 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Abbott Academy, 383 

Act of Supremacy, 55 

Act of Uniformity, 56 

Act Severing Official Relations between Church 

and State in Massachusetts, 311 
Advance, 480 
Adventurers, their Contract with Pilgrims, 82, 

83 ; Hinder Success of Pilgrims, 95 ; Contract 

Ended, qj 
Albany Convention, 333 
Albigenses, 52 
Almanac, Pierce's, 471 
Alton Presbytery, Action of, 332 
American Bible Society, 359 
American Board, Organized, 293 ; Represented 

Presbyterians, 328; its History, 335 ff., 352, 

357 ; its Literature, 484 ; Constitution of, 502- 

504. 
American Congregational Association, 359-362 
American Domestic Missionary Society, 346 
American Education Society, 300, 327, 329, 342- 

345, 429 
American Home Missionary Society, 328, 329, 

332, 346, 350, 369, 427, 428. _ See C. H. M. S. 
American Missionary Association, 351-357, 366, 

428 
American Sunday-school Union, 348, 349 
American Tract Society, 359 
Amherst College, 307, 340, 367, 368 
Amsterdam Trading Company, 82 
Andover Band, 372 
Andover Review, 475 
Andover Seminary, 288, 290, 291, 300, 335, 340, 

387 
Antioch, First Congregational Church in, 42 
Aristocracy and Democracy, Struggle between, 

in Massachusetts Colony, 124 
Arminius Disputes with Robinson, 78 
Apostle, Elected by Disciples, 36 ; Office of, 

Ceased with the Twelve, 49 
Associations of Ministers, 207 
Atlanta University, 356 

Authority of Churches Strengthened, 207, 208 
Authorities on Congregationalism, xxviii-xxx 

Ballot, when First Used in America, 104 

Bangor Seminary, 387 

Baptism of Children of Non-Church Members, 

171-181 
Baptist Church, First in Rhode Island, 163 
Baptist Missionary Society, 337 
Baptists, Persecutions of, 184 
Barbadoes, Church in, 165 
Barnstable, Mass., Church in, 154 
Barrington, R. I., Oldest Congregational Church 

in the State, 164 
Barrowism, How Different from Brownism, 67 ; 

in Early New England Churches, 138 
Bay Psalm Book, 471 
Beloit College, 372, 431-433 



Benevolent Societies, their Names and Organi- 
zations, 358 

Berea College, 355, 375, 398 

Bermuda Islands, Church in, 165 

Bible, Indian, 169 

Bibliotheca Sacra, 475 

Body of Liberties, 150, 266 

Boston Ministers' Meeting, 206 

Boston Recorder, 300, 477 

Boston Settled in 1630, 114, 115 

Bowdoin College, 161, 366 

Boys' Brigade, 464 

Bradford Academy, 382 

Brattle Street Church, Views of, 211 

British Officers Destroy Church Property, 273 

British Quarterly Reznew, 476 

Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, 465 

Brown University, 366 

Browne, Robert, His Early History, 58 ; Founds 
Separatist Church at Norwich, 58 ; His Prin- 
ciples of Church Government, 59, 60 ; These 
Principles Applicable to the State, 60 ; His 
later History and Death, 61 

Burial Hill, Why so Named, 90 ; Declaration of 
Faith, 517 

California, Congregationalism in, 444 

Cambridge Platform, 148, 149, 507 

Cambridge Synod, in 1646-1648, 145-147 

Canada, Congregationalists in, 410 

Cape Cod, Pilgrims Arrive at, 87 

Carleton College, 377, 378, 439 

Caste Condemned, 527 

Charlestown, Mass., Settled by Winthrop's Com- 
pany, 112 ; Present First Church Organized in, 
1632, 116 

Charter of Massachusetts Bay Company Granted, 
loi ; Transferred to New England, iii ; its 
Surrender Demanded, 126 ; Threatened, 191 ; 
Withdrawn, 196 

Chicago, Churches in, 403 ; Theological Seminary, 

389, 390 

Christian Disciple, 311 

Christian Endeavor Society, First, 456 ; its aim 
and Methods, 458 ; its Committees, 460 ; Junior 
Societies, 461 ; Conventions and Local Unions, 
462 

Christian Examiner, 311 

Christian History, 470 

Christian Spectator, 311 

Christian Union, 479 

Christian Witness, 476 

Church, Christ's Idea of, 35, 36 ; Robert Browne's 
Idea of, 59 ; Pilgrim Idea of, 85 

Church, First Congregational, Formed in Jerusa- 
lem, 37, 39 ; in House of Cornelius, 41 ; in . 
Samaria, 41 ; in Antioch, 42 ; First Congrega- 
tional, Formed in London in 1592, 67 ; First, 
Organized in America, 104 ; First Protestant, in 
the Southwest, 435 



547 



548 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Church Government, Browne's System of, 58-61 
Church, Local, its Sufficiency Shown, 46 
Church, London Congregational, Organized, 67 ; 
Escapes to Amsterdam, 71 ; its Confession of 
Faith, 76 ; its Troubles, 77 ; its End, 79 
Church of England Attempts to Establish its 

Order of Service in Salem, 108 
Church Psalmody, 486 

Church, Qualifications for Membership in, 39 
Church, the Visible, not Organized by Christ, 

33 
Church Voted to Receive Gentiles, 41 

Churches Formed in Asia Minor, 44, 47 

Churches in Boston During the Revolutionary 
War, 273 

Churches, Increase by Decades, 412 

Churches, Institutional, 417 

Churches of Christ as Described in New Testa- 
ment, 49 

Churches Organized Before 1640, 155 

Churches, Table of, 411, 412 ; Ten Largest, 

415 . ... ... 

Churches, Their Spiritual Condition in Early 

Part of Eighteenth Century, 237, 238 
Citizenship Confined to Church Membership, 

124 
Civil War, Influence of Churches in, 400 
Clubs, Congregational, 417 
Colleges, List of, 391 
College Men in the Civil War, 433 
Colorado, Churches in, 175, 407 
Colorado College, 379 
Committees of C. E. Societies, 460 
Compact in the " Mayflower," 88 
Confederation of Colonies in 1643, 152 
Conferences and Associations, State, 502, 508, 

See States by Name 
Conferences, Local, their Origin, 310, 505 
Confession of Faith of Amsterdam Church, 1596, 

76 . 
Conflict between Conservatives and Liberals, 

208 ff. 
Congregational Board of Publication, 349 
Congregational Church-building Society, 358, 

428, 511 _ 
Congregational Churches Presbyterianized, 423 
Congregational Doctrine, Repentance to Gentiles, 

41 . . . . 

Congregational Home Missionary Society, 345- 
348, 354.. See A. H. M. S. 

Congregational House, 361 

Congregational Hymn Book, 486 

Congregational Library, 360 

Congregational Magazine,, 476 

Congregational Ministers in Revolutionary War, 
266 ; Leaders of Reforms, 279 

Congregational Missionary Society of Con- 
necticut, 422 

Congregational Principles of Fellowship Recog- 
nized, 46 

Congregational Principles of Wycliffe, 53 

Congregational Quarterly,, 473 

Congregational Review, 476 

Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing 
Society, 348-351 

Congregationalism, in the Epistles, 47 ; the Polity 
of the Primitive Churches, 50 ; its Fundamental 
Principles, viii ; its Insistence on an Educated 
Ministry, xi ; a Missionary and a Catholic Sys- 
tem, xii ; its Liberty and Aim for Spiritual 
Unity, xiv ; its Beginnings in England, 53 ff. ; 
its Beginnings in New England, 107, 108, 118 ff.; 
its Principles Summarized, 141, 142 ; Growth 
and Expansion, 152 ff. ; the Last Half Century 
of, 393 ; its Recent Growth, 402 ff.; its Pros- 
pects, 417, 418 



Congregationalist , The, 478 

Congregationalists in Westminster Assembly, 
139 ; Union with Presbyterians in England, 223 

Congregationalists throughout the World, 416 

Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, 472 

Connecticut, General Association of, 502, 508, 
509 ; Consociational System of, 320 ; Consoci- 
ations of Churches, 227 ; Constitution of, 150 

Constantinople, its Fall in 1453, 5^ 

Contest between Churches and Parishes in 
Massachusetts, 294, ff. 

Contribution for Poor Taken by Church in 
Antioch, 43 

Controversial Pamphlets, 470 

Conventions, Cambridge, 1643, 140 ; Michigan 
City, 1846, 424 ; Albany, 1852, 424, 510 ; Boston, 

1870, 523 ; Pilgrim Memorial, 522 
Coppin and T hacker Hanged, 61 

Cotton, John, His Early History and Arrival in 

New England, 120 ; Teacher of First Church, 

Boston, 122 ; His Aristocratic Tendencies, 124 ; 

His Relation to the Hutchinson Disturbance, 

130 ff.; His Writings, 138, 146, 148 
Council, First at Jerusalem, 45 ; International, 

1891, 491 
Councils, Local, Their Character and Functions, 

494-500 
Councils -and Synods, General, 510 ; of 1637, 510 ; 

of 1648, 510 ; of 1852, 510 ; of 1865, 489, 511 
Council, National Triennial, 491, 503-504, 507 ; 

Origin of and History, 521 ff.; Constitution of, 

524 ; Reference to Action by, 525 ff. ; Topics 

Discussed, 526 ff. 
Covenant of Church at Charlestown, 113 ; of 

First Church, Salem, 105, 106, 109 
Covenant, Halfway, 171-182 
Cutler Academy, 379 

Dakotas, Churches in, 407, Congregationalism 

in, 440 
Dartmouth College, 365 
Deacons, Elected by the Church, 39 
Declaration of Faith in Full in 1865, 517 ; Basis in 

1871, 524 ; in 1883 in Full, 530 

Dedham, First Church, Division Between Church 

and Parish, 301-302 
Delfshaven, Embarkation From, 83 
Denmark Academy, 438 
Denominations, Census of, 414 
Dissensions in Local Churches, i8g 
Doane College, 378-379, 440 
Doctrinal Faith. See Declaration. 
Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 349, 351 
Doctrine, Liberty Allowed in, 397 
Doctrines of Christ Summarized, 33-34 
Donatists, 52 
Dorchester," First Church of. Organized, in ; 

Church Removes to Windsor, Conn., 129 ; 

Second Church, Contest in, 295 
Dort, Synod of, 78 
Dover, N. H., Church in, 158 
Doshisha, The, 339, 341 
Drury College, 378, 436 
Dudley's Quarrel with the Mathers, 229 
" Due Rights of Presbyteries," 140 
Duxbury, Church in, 153 

Ecclesiastical Convention of New Connecticut, 

325 
Ecclesiastical Courts, their Power in England, 

55-56 . . X , 

Education in Foreign Lands, 341 
Edwardean Theology, Teachers of, 278 
Edwards, Jonathan, His Early History, 235-236 ; 
Preaching at Northampton, 237-140 ; Summary 
of Doctrines, 241-243 ; Dismissed from North- 



GENERAL INDEX. 



549 



ampton, 262 ; Called to Princeton College and 

Death, 263 ; his " Freedom of the Will/' 263 ; 

his " Religious Affections," 262 
Elder, Another Name for Pastor, 48 
Elders, Ruling, 67 
Election Sermons, 189, 190 
Ely Volume, 484 
English Congregationalist^ 476 
Episcopacy, its Attempts to gain Foothold in 

New England, 231, 267 
Episcopal Idea, how Developed, « 
" Evangelical " and " Liberal ' Churches in 

Massachusetts, 284 
Exeter, Church in, 159 

Fairfield, Conn., First Church in, 157 

Fargo College, 379 

Fast Day, 93 ; General Fast Appointed July 30, 
1629, 112 ; Days Appointed by Boston Minis- 
ters, 270-271 

First Institution in New England for Educating 
Girls Only, 383 

First Meeting-house, Salem, no 

First Sermon in New England, x6o 

Fisk University, 354-356 

Foreign Missions, Growing Interest in, 309 

" Fortune," Arrival of, at Plymouth, 91 

Freedmen, First School for, 353 

Freedmen's Bureau, 354 

Freedom, Principles of, in First Puritan Colony, 
116 

Freeman's Oath, 471 

French Protestant College, 387 

Gainesborough, Church in, 72 
General Court, First, 113 
General Repository,, 300 
Gentiles, Repentance Granted to them, 41 
Gorges, Capt., Attempts to Extend his Govern- 
ment over Colonies, 94-95 
Gorton, Samuel, Disturbing Providence, 164 
" Gospel Order Revived," 214 
Great Awakening, its Results, 260-261 
Guilford, Conn., First Church in, 156 

Hampton Institute, 355 

Hartford, Meeting-house of First Church, 129 

Hartford Theological Seminary, 312, 388 

Hart/ord Seminary Record, 475 

Harvard College, 130, 286, 291, 342, 363-364 ; 

Captured by Unitarians, 286 
Hawaiian Islands, Mission to, 337-338 
Haystack Prayer Meeting, 335 
Halfway Covenant ; Convention of Ministers, 

Boston, 1657, 177; Action of General Court on, 

188 ; Opposition to, 186-188 ; its Consequences, 

239-240 
Hanging of Quakers, 182 
Heads of Agreement, 223, 224, 226 
Henry VIII., Head of English Church, 5<j 
Heresy Trials of Three Presbyterian Ministers, 

329. 
Higginson's Farewell to England, 103 
Hingham, Trouble in Church at, 143 
Hooker and Stone Installed at Cambridge, 123 
Hooker's Company Remove to Connecticut, 129 
Hooker, Thomas, His Early History, 120; His 
Influence in England, 121 ; Arrival in New 
England, 121 ; Pastor at Newtown, 123 ; Demo- 
cratic Tendencies, 124, 125 ; Removal to Con- 
necticut, 128, 129 ; Opposition to Hutchin- 
sonians, 134 ; Invited to Westminster Assembly, 
139 ; His Survey of the Sum of Church Disci- 
pline, 141, 142 ; His Work on the Constitution 
of Connecticut and the Confederacy of the 
Colonies, 150 



Hopkins Grammar School, 220 

Hopkinsianism, 278 ff., 294, 328 

Howard University, 356 

Hull, lovva, Academy, 439 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, Arrives at Boston, 132 ; 
Holds Public Meetings and Criticises Ministers, 
133 ; is Banished from the Colony, Excommu- 
nicated from the Church, and Mi^ssacred by 
Indians, 135 

Hymns of the Faith, 486 

Illinois, Churches in, 403 

Illinois College, 368-369, 430 

Illinois, General Association of, 512 

Immigration to Massachusetts Colony Checked, 

1631-1633, 115 ; Cessation of, in 1640, 152 
Independent,, The New York, 479 
Independent and Non-Con/onnist,, 477 
Indiana, Congregationalism in, 427 
Indians, Act of General Court to Civilize, 166, 

Communities in Natick and Ponkapog, 169 ; 

Missionary Work among, 166, 352-353, 357 
Inquiries Concerning Polity of New England 

Churches, 138 
Installation of Higginson and Skelton, 106 
Installation of Officers of Church at Charlestown, 

114 
Iowa Band, 404, 436-437 
Iowa, Churches in, 404 ; Congregationalism in, 

436 
Iowa College, 372-373, 434, 438 
Iowa News Letter, 480 
Ipswich Academy, 383 

Jacksonville, III., Female College, 430 
Jenisalem, Formation of First Church in, 37 
Jubilee Singers, 355 
Junior Society of Christian Endeavor, 460, 462 

Kansas, Churches in, 406-407, Congregationalism 

in. 439 
" Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," 138 
Key West, Church at, xviii 
King Philip's War, 191 
King's Chapel, 1689, 203, 231, 281 
Knox College, 431 

Lake Charles College, 381 

Lake Erie Seminary, 385 

Landing at Plymouth, December 21, 1620, 89 

Lay College, Revere, Mass., 387 

Lollards, The, 53 

Long Island, Congregational Churches in, 164 

Lord's Supper, a Converting Ordinance, 239 

Louisiana Purchase, 434 

Lyford and Oldham Expelled from Plymouth 

Colony, 96 
Lynn, Church Formed at, 116 

Maine, General Conference of, 508 ; Settlements 

in, 160 
Manifesto Church, 212 
Marietta, O., its Settlement, 420 ; College, 421, 

431. 433i 441 

Mar-prelate Tracts, 65, 468 

Marshfield, Church in, 153 

Massachusetts Bay Company Organized in Eng- 
land, loi ; Removes to New England, in 

Massachusetts Charter Threatened, 191 ; Charter 
Withdrawn, ig6 ; Legislature Grants Aid to 
Feeble Churches, 205 ; in Revolutionary War, 
272 

Massachusetts, Domestic Missionary Society of, 
310 

Massachusetts, General Association of, 284, 502, 
508 



550 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Massachusetts, Missionary Magazine, 284, 472 
Massachusetts Sabbath-school Union, 348 
Mather, Cotton, His Early History, 197 ; His 
Political Influence, 198 ; His Connection with 
Witchcraft Proceedings, 199-202 ; His Disputes 
with Ministers and Churches, 210, 212, 213 ; 
His Service to Yale College, 222 ; His Difficulty 
with Dudley, 228-230 ; His Writings and Death, 

234 
" Mayflower," 83, 84, 87 ; Compact in, 88 ; Arrives 

at Plymouth, 89 
Meeting-house, First, in New England, 91 
Memorial of Congregationalists to Queen's 

Council, 68 
Memorial Tablet to Robinson, 97 
Methodism, First Appearance in Massachusetts, 

283 
Michigan, Churches in, 402 
Michigan City, Ind., Convention, 331 
Middle Kingdom, 484 
Middlebury College, 183, 366 _ 
Milford, Conn., First Church in, 156 
Mills College and Seminary, Cal., 385 
Mills, S. J., Organizes Presbyterian Churches in 

Natchez and New Orleans, 425 
Ministerial Associations, 507 ; Relief Fund, 359 
Ministers' Convention of Boston, 206 ; Attempts 

to Strengthen Government of the Churches, 214; 

Sends Circular Letter to Pastors, 216 
Ministers' Meeting in Boston, 125 
Ministers, Standing of, 527-528 
Minnesota, Churches in, 405 ; Congregationalism 

ini 439 

Mission Circles, their Work, 455 

Missionaries of the Sunday School and Publish- 
ing Society, 452 

Missionary Herald, 310, 472 

Missionary Society of Connecticut, 283 ; of Mas- 
sachusetts, 283, 310 ; Work of other Denomina- 
tions, 340 

Missions, Originated in Church at Antioch, 43 

Missouri, Churches in, 405, 436 

Montana, Congregationalism in, 441 

Monticello Seminary, 430 

" Morning Star," 338 

Mount Hermon Schools, 387 

Mount Holyoke College, 383-385 

Muskingum Academy, 421 

Muskingum Association, 325 

Nansemond County, Virginia, Church, 165 

" Narrative of Surprising Conversions," 245 

Nashua, Church in, 160 

Natick, Indian Community in, 169 

National Co-operative Societies, Unity in, 500 

National Council, 354, 359, 491, 503-504. 507, 521 

ff., 524 ff- 

Nebraska, Churches in, 406-407 ; Congregation- 
alism in, 440 

New Brunswick, Churches in, 410 

New Englander, 475 

Newfoundland, Church in, 410 

New Hampshire, First Settled, 157 ; General 
Association of, 508 

New Haven Colony, 137, 156 

" New Lights " Persecuted in Connecticut, 257 ; 
Some of them Remove to Nova Scotia, 409 

New Providence, Church in, 165 

New West Education Commission, 344-345, 429 

New York, Early Churches in, 318, 324 ; General 
Association of, 509 

North Church, Boston, 210 

Northwest Territory, 419 ; Prohibition of Slav- 
ery in, 420 

Nova Scotia, Congregationalists in, 409 

NovatJans, 52 



Oberlin College, 352-353, 369-370, 372, 397, 
^3i> 433 ; National Council at, 523 ; Theolog- 
ical Seminary, 388 

Ohio General Conference, 522 

Old South Church, 187, 210, 212, 230 ; Meeting- 
house Seized, 196 

Olivet College, 371, 373, 376, 431 

Opposition to Congregational Polity, 143 

" Order of the Gospel," 213 

Oregon, Claims of United States to, 442 

Orthodox Periodicals, 311 

Outlook, The, 479 

Pacific States, Churches in, 408 ; Theological 
Seminary, 390 ; University, 380, 443 

Pacific, The, 480 

Panoplist, The, 299, 300, 310, 472 

" Parish Church " and " Exiled Church," 303 

Parish, Decision of Courts Giving Civil Power to, 
302 

Park Street Church, Boston, 292, 299, 307 

Pastor and Deacons the only Orders in the 
Church, 48 

Patriotism in Sermons Preceding the Revolu- 
tionary War, 270 

Paul, First Missionary Journey, 44 ; Second 
Missionary Journey, 47 ; Third Missionary 
Journey, 47 

Paulicians, 52 

Peter Tried by Church of Jerusalem, 41 

Phillips Academy, Andover, 387, 340, 381 ; Exe- 
ter Academy, 381 

Pilgrim Church, St, Louis, 405-406 

Pilgrims at Scrooby, 72 ; Arrive in Holland, 74 ; 
Remove from Amsterdam to Leyden, 78 ; 
Begin to Think of Emigrating to America, 79 ; 
Petition of. Refused by King James I., 80 ; 
Prepare to Depart from Holland, 81 ; Com- 
pact with Adventurers, 82 ; Depart from Ply 
mouth, England, 84 ; Land at Plymouth, Mass., 
89 ; First Year at Plymouth, 90 ; Perils to 
their Church, 94-95 ; Leyden Remnant Arrives 
at Plymouth, 1629, 99 

Piscataqua Evangelical Magazine, 472 

Plan of Union. See Presbyterian Church 

Platform of Cambridge Synod, 174; of Church 
Discipline, 148 ; of 1865, 489, 516 * 

Plea for the Gospel in Wales, Penry's, 64 

Plymouth, Church in, 153, 522 ; Church of the 
Pilgrimage formed at, 295 ; Council at, 517 

Plymouth Collection, 486 

Plymouth Hymnal, 487 

Plymouth, Virginia Company, 80, 82 

Polity, Congregational, Browne's applicable to 
the State, 60 ; Opposition to, 143 

Polity, 400 ; by Seven Churches of London, 489 

Pomona College, 381 

Ponkapog, Indian Community, 169 

Portsmouth, N. H., Church in, 160 

" Power of Congregational Churches, The," 141 

Presbyterian Church, Division between Old and 
New Schools, 329 ; Plan of Union with, 318 ff., 
Plan Stated, 321 f.. First Working of, 323 ; 
Results of, 325 ; How Results Were Caused, 
326 ; Results to Presbyterians, 327 ; its Effects, 
424 ; Ended, 511 

Presbyterianism, Why it Prevailed over Congre- 
gationalism, 324 

Principles of Congregationalism in Practice, 107 

"Privye Church,^ The, 57 ^ 

Proclamation of Emancipation, 353 

Proposals of 1705, 217 ; Approved by Ministers' 
Convention, 218 ; Attacked by John Wise, 218, 
219 ; Attempt to Revive them, 300 

Publications of Sunday School and Publishing 
Society, 454 



GENERAL INDEX. 



551 



Puritan, Origin of the Word, 52 
Puritanism, English, How Originated, 55 
Puritans, Persecuted in Early Ages, 52 ; Some 
Become Pilgrims, 71 ; First, of Massachusetts 
Bay, 100 ; First Settlement Removed to Naum- 
keag, 101 ; Settlement Enlarged by New Ar- 
rivals, 102 ; Early, Many of Them College 
Graduates, 119 ; Commonwealth Ended, 202 ; 
Sympathy with Their Brethren in England, 
271 ; Resistance to Prelatical Rule, 271 

Quakers, Rise of the New Sect, 181 ; Whipped, 
Imprisoned, Banished from Boston, 182 ; Some 
of Them Hung, 183 ; End of Persecutions, 183, 
184 

Reformation, The, 53 

Reforming Synod, 167^, igi-192 

Religious Declension m the Colonies, 232 

Religious Repository, 472 

Rescue Missions, 417 

Results of Hutchinson Troubles, 137 

Review 0/ Reviews, 476 

Revival in Boston, 1740-41, 250 ; Opposed, 253 ; 
in 1800, 283 ; in 1823, 307 ; in Connecticut, 
252; in Northampton, 244 

Revolutionary War Prompted by a Religious 
Motive, 265 

Rhode Island, Congregationalists in, 163 ; Con- 
sociation and Conference, 508 

Ripon College, 375, 431 

Robinson, John, Early History and Character, 
73 ; His Influence in Holland, 78 ; His Leader- 
ship of the Pilgrims, 70, 81, 83 ; Kept by Puri- 
tans from going to Plymouth, 95 ; His Death 
and Memorial Tablet, 97, 98 

Rollins College, 381 

Roxbury, Church Formed in, 116 

Sabbath, Hymn Book, 486 ; Hymn and Tune 

Book, 486 
Salem, Name Adopted by Puritan Settlement, 

102 
Sandwich, Church in, 155 
San Francisco Selected as Place of Meeting, 

534 

Savoy Confession, 1658, 193 

Saybrook Platform, 225, 227 

School System of Massachusetts, 363-364 

Scituate, Church in, 153 

Scrooby, Manor-house, 73 ; Church Emigrates to 
Holland, 74 

Seaman's Friend Society, 359 

Separatists, Church at Norwich, 58 ; in the North 
Country, 72 ; in Connecticut, 258 

Sermon, at Organization of First Church, Jerusa- 
lem, 38 ; Annual Convention, at Boston, 291 

Sickness at Charlestown, 114 

Slavery, Agitation against, 330; Churches 
Opposed to, 397-400 ; Prohibited in Northwest 
Territory, 420 

Smith College, 385 

Social Settlements, 417 

Society, for the Promotion of Collegiate Educa- 
tion in the West, 343 ; for the Propagation of 
the Gospel, 230 

Southern States, Churches in, 408 

Southwark, London, Church, 153 

Spirit of the Pil^ims, 311, 473 

Standing Council Appointed by the General 
Court of Massachusetts, 124 

State Organizations of Churches. See Confer- 
ences AND Associations, also Unity 

Stockton, Kansas, Academj', 440 

Straight University, New Orleans, 356 

Stratford, Conn., First Church in, 157 



Sunday Schools, Early History of, in Congrega- 
tional Churches, 348-3^0, 450-454 

Sunday-school Quarterlies, 477 ; Treasury, 477 ; 
Visitor, 477 

St. Louis, First Protestant Preaching in, 426 ; 
Protestant Preaching Forbidden in, 434 ; Growth 
of Congregationalism in, 436 

"Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline," 141 

Synod, First in New England, 134 ; Result of the 
First Cambridge, 1637, 133 ; Second Cambridge, 
1648, 147 ; at Boston, on Halfway Covenant, 
1662, 179 ; called in 1666, 187 ; Saybrook, 223 ; 
Attempt of Massachusetts to Call, 233 ; Forbid- 
den in 1725, 233 

Tabor College, 371, 376-377 

Talladega College, 356 

Taunton, Church in, 154 

" Testimony " of Massachusetts Ministers against 

Revival, 258 
Tests, for Church Members, 527 ; of Ministerial 

Standing, 527-528 
Thanksgiving Day, gi 
Theological Seminaries, List of, 392 
Theology of Edwards, 241-243 
Thursday Lectures, 125 
Tillotson Collegiate Institute, 356 
Tongaloo University, 356 
Trans-Mississippi Region Ceded by Spain to 

France, 434 ; Sold to United States, 434 
Triennial Convention of the Northwest, 512, 522 
" True Description, A," 64 
Trustees of Yale Recommend to Connecticut the 

Confession of Boston Synod, 222 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 399 

" Union in Prayer," 261 

Union Park Church, 404 

Unitarianism, Beginnings of, in America, 277 ff.; 
in Europe, 282 f. ; in Connecticut, 294 ; Growth 
of, in America. 298 ; Open Conflict with Ortho- 
doxy, 298 ; Organized, 303 ; Defined, 303 ; 
Social Factors Involved in Controversy, 303 ff.; 
Church in Baltimore, 306 ; Periodicals, 311 ; 
Advocate, 311 ; its Service to Orthodoxy, 315 , 
Doctrinal Belief of, 316 ; Causes of Failure of, 
316 : Relative Strength and Weakness of Uni- 
tarians and Trinitarians, 312 ff. 

United Domestic Missionary Society of New 
York, 346 

Unity, Visible, 489 ff . ; in Sentiment, 493 ; With 
Church Catholic, 490-492, 525; Denominational, 
492, 524-525, 533; of Distinct Churches, 493 ; 
in Local Councils, 494 ; in General Co-operative 
Organizations, 500 ; in Local Conferences, 505 ; 
in State Organizations, 508 ; in General Synods, 
see Councils ; in the National Council, see 
Council, National 

University of California, 381 

University of Vermont, 366 

Vermont, Evangelical Magazine, 473 ; General 

Convention of, 508 
Village Hymns, 486 
" Vindication of the Government of the New 

England Churches, A," 219 
Virginia Company of London, 80, 82 
Voluntary Societies, 501 

Waldenses, 52 

Washburn College, 375-376, 440 
Watertown, Church Formed at, 113 
" Watts and Select Hymns," 485 
Weathersfield, Conn., 155 
Wedding, First, in New England, 90 
Wellesley College, 385-386 



e 



552 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Wells, Me., Church in, 162 

IVellsprin^, The, 349, 477 

Wessagussett, 95 ; Weston's Colony at, 92-93 

Western Evangelical Missionary Society, 352 

Western New York First Settled, 319 

Western Reserve, 319, 422 ; College, 429, 431 

Westminster Assembly, 139, 147, 148 

Wheaton Academy, Norton, Mass., 383 

Wheaton, 111., College, 431 

Whitefield, in New England, 246 ; his Preaching, 
247 ; Second and Subsequent Visits to New 
England, 259 ; His Death, 260 

Whitman College, 380, 443 

William and Mary College, 364 

Williams College, 365-367 

Williams, Roger, a Disturber of the Peace, 126 ; 
Attacks the Charter of Massachusetts, 127 ; Re- 
fuses to become a Freeman, 128 ; is Ordered to 
Leave the Colony, 128 

Williston Seminary, 381 

Windsor, Conn., 155 _ . 

Wisconsin, Churches in, 405 ; Puritan, 480 

Witchcraft Panic in Salem, 200 

Woman's Board of Missions, 342 



^ St. 



Women, Education of, 370, 382 ; Equality of 

Rights of, in the Church, 527 
Worship, Order of Public, 150 
Wycliffe, Taught Congregational Principles, 

53 . 

Wyoming, Churches in, 407 

Yale Band, of Illinois, 369, 372, 430; of Wash- 
ington, 443 

Yale College, 220, 231, 344, 364 ; Divinity School, 
387-388,485 ; University, 364, 387 

Yale Revieiv, 475 

Yankton College, 379, 440, 500 

Yarmouth, Church in, 155 

Year Book, 475 ; Character of, 528 

York, Me., Church in, 162 

Young People, Associations of, in the Eighteenth 
Century, 448 ; Organization of, at Lexington, 
Mass., 449 ; Distinction Between Earlier and 
Modern Methods of Training, 447 ; Literary 
Societies, Debating Clubs, etc., 454 ; Society 
of Christian Endeavor, its Beginning, 456, 463 ; 
its Prayer-meeting Pledge, 458 ; Consecration 
Meeting, 459 
Youth'' s Companion, The, 476 




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